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Big Game in Africa 


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HE SAW ME AND STOPPED 



MORRISON S SYSTEM OF NATURAL HISTORY STORIES 


HUNTING BIG GAME 
IN AFRICA 


NASHVILLE, TENN.; DALLAS, TEX.; RICHMOND, VA. 
PUBLISHING HOUSE M, E. CHURCH, SOUTH 
SMITH & LAMAR, AGENTS 




Copyright, 1912 

BY' 

Smith & Lamar 


V t) 


CCI.A330595 


MY MOTHER 
AT WHOSE KNEE SO 
MANY HAPPY HOURS OF CHILDHOOD 
WERE SPENT IN LISTENING 
TO HER STORIES 


OF LONG 
AGO 



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INTRODUCTION. 

All people like stories of adventure, boys 
and girls most of all. Our ancestors told them 
about their camp fires at night in the long win- 
ters and on the meadows and in the openings 
of the great forests in the long twilights of 
the summer. Some told of the adventures of 
the day and of their own experiences and the 
experiences of others, their friends of the tribe. 
Others knew and told the stories of ancient 
times and of distant places. Stories of this 
kind were transformed and idealized in the 
imagination of those who told them from gen- 
eration to generation, and finally became the 
dearest treasures of the people. The old men 
of good memory and vivid imagination and of 
ready speech who knew these stories and could 
tell them best were welcomed by all, and by 
none more heartily than by the children. 

The best of these stories of heroic adventure 
among the noblest races were knit together by 
the readiest of their story-tellers into great 
epics: Iliads, Odysseys, Nibelungen songs, sto- 
ries of Beowulf, and the like were put into per- 
manent written form, and are still the most 

( 7 ) 


8 


WILLIE WYLU. 


valued treasures in all the world. To know 
them is to know the heart of man. To love 
them is to be in sympathy with his aspirations, 
desires, and hopes. To a large extent they 
form the materials of our best modern culture. 

But the world is ever young. Its youth is 
renewed with each generation. The love of 
adventure never dies. Every new generation 
is still curious about the strange and unknown. 
The imagination is still fresh and active. Sto- 
ryland still has large areas of unexplored ter- 
ritory. 

Now, as ever, the proper medium of the sto- 
ry is the human voice. Language is primarily 
a thing of the tongue and ear rather than of 
the hand and eye, and the best and most at- 
tractive literary style is that which grows 
immediately out of the spoken word. One of 
the most remarkable phenomena of the world 
of childhood and youth in modern times is the 
revival of the ancient custom of telling stories 
— under somewhat different conditions. The 
story-teller is again the popular hero. In the 
home, in the school, on the village green, in 
the public library, in the lecture hall, in the 
church, in every possible place people gather 


INTRODUCTION. 


9 


to listen in silence and feel the magic spell of 
the stories, old and new. 

Dr. William James Morrison has become 
known among modern story-tellers for his real- 
istic stories of adventure, in which are inter- 
woven valuable information of strange lands, 
peoples, and animals. The stories in this vol- 
ume were first told by Dr. Morrison to the 
children of Nashville in the Children’s Read- 
ing Room of the Public Library of that city, 
and have been written down as told. Hence 
their freshness, simplicity, and realism. 

I have just read them at a sitting without 
skipping a sentence, and I am sure many an- 
other child will want to do the same. 




Washington, D. C 



CONTENTS. 


Page 

First Evening 13 

Second Evening 24 

Third Evening 35 

Fourth Evening 45 

Fifth Evening 56 

Sixth Evening 69 

Seventh Evening 81 

Eighth Evening 94 

Ninth Evening 106 

Tenth Evening 118 














WILLIE WYLD. 


First Evening. 

LTHOUGH I was a big boy, my friend, 



General Kermit, always called me 


X ^ “Willie Wyld,'’ a nickname I got 
while a scout among the Indians. It is hard 
to get rid of a nickname, and I was known as 
Willie Wyld while with General Kermit on 
our great hunt in Africa, which I am going to 
tell you about this evening. 

You must know that the Island of Zanzibar 
is ofif the east coast of Africa and only a few 
miles from the mainland. We were on this 
island in the city of Zanzibar when General 
Kermit decided he would go in search of a 
missionary named Wesley, who had gone to 
Africa and had not been heard from in a long 
time. 

Among the many things that we had to buy 




14 


WILLIE WYLD. 


at Zanzibar before starting on our journey 
were hundreds of pounds of copper wire, thou- 
sands of yards of calico and domestic, barrels 
and barrels of colored beads, hundreds of 
knives of all kinds, together with such bright 
and shiny toys as we were told would please 
the negroes of the country through which we 
would have to pass. In Africa money is of 
no use in buying from the negroes, so we used 
as money such things as they want. 

In those days there were no roads of any 
kind in Africa, nothing but little paths through 
the jungles, made by the negroes or animals 
going from place to place. In such a country 
wagons could be of no use, so we had to hire 
some seventy-five porters to carry our ammu- 
nition, guns, food, and the many other things 
that a hunting party would need on a long 
journey. 

To protect our goods and porters from the 
savage negroes of the country, we had to em- 
ploy a number of Hindo and negro soldiers 
as guards. In addition to all these porters 
and soldiers, we took with us some men called 
''interpreters,” who could speak English and 
also speak the language of the people through 
whose country we would hunt or travel. 


ELEPHANTS NOT USED. 


15 


Although the negroes have been living for 
thousands of years in a land with great herds 
of elephants, they have never tamed or trained 
them to do their work, as has been done in 
Asia. The only animals we could buy to as- 
sist in carrying our goods were a few donkeys 
and some cows. All our men, animals, and 
goods were boated from the island across the 



Our negroes on the march. 


water to the coast of Africa, and we began 
our march through the country of U-za-ramo. 
General Kermit and I each rode on a cow, 
while our goods were carried on the backs of 
men and donkeys. Fifty of our men did noth- 
ing but carry the bundles of wire, bales of 
cloth, and sacks of beads that were to be used 
in the place of money. Although the negro 
men we had employed at Zanzibar had been 


i6 WILLIE WYLD, 

paid one-half the wages that were due them 
for the journey, we learned when we went into 
camp the first night that ten of our men had 
run away. Their friends said that these ne- 
groes believed the white men were cannibals 
and wanted to get them far from their homes 
then kill and eat them. 

On the second day’s journey we were met 
by a band of negro warriors who lived in that 
part of the country. They were armed with 
bows, arrows, and spears, and for a while it 
looked as though we would have to fight our 
way through; but we found that by giving 
them some wire and a little cloth as toll we 
could continue on our journey. The people 
of U-za-ramo made their living by compel- 
ling travelers to pay them before they are al- 
lowed to go through the country. They also 
capture negroes of the other tribes and sell 
them as slaves. 

These negroes comb their hair in many 
curious ways, smear their bodies with a mix- 
ture of clay and castor oil, put a piece of cloth 
or animal skin around their waist, and march 
about, thinking themselves to be dandy dudes 
of Africa. 

By some mistake our guide took the wrong 


ROUND, BEADY, BLACK EYES, 


17 

path, and before we discovered it we came 
upon some men who were digging gum copal. 
This gum was carried to Zanzibar and shipped 
to all parts of the world to be made into var- 
nish. I learned that possibly more than a hun- 
dred years ago there was a forest of trees at 
this place and from these trees there oozed out 
a gummy sap that dropped to the ground. As 
year after year this gum dropped to the ground 
or ran down the side of the tree little piles of it 
were formed. Then storms blew the trees 
down and the gum was covered with leaves 
and dirt. But it remained there until man 
found it useful as varnish to make his furni- 
ture and carriages look bright and shiny. 

The negro men who worked at digging gum 
copal had put up huts for their families, and 
we saw the negro women carrying their ba- 
bies on their backs. To keep the naked chil- 
dren warm, a sheep skin was thrown over 
them and fastened at the parent’s breast. 
The children could cling to their mothers as 
tightly as if they had been glued to them, and 
the only things you could see were their little 
coconut heads with pairs of round, beady, black 
eyes staring at you. 

While we were in this camp I heard some 


2 


i8 WILLIE WYLD. 

children screaming and crying. Going to 
find what was the cause of so much trouble 
among them, I was shocked to see the chil- 
dren being carried away by some Arab slave 
traders. I learned that the mothers had sold 
their children to those Arabs because the 
children had cut two teeth in their upper jaw 
before cutting any in their lower jaw. When- 
ever a child does this it is either sold to the 
slave traders or put to death, because the 
parents think such a child will bring them 
disease, death, and bad luck of all kinds. 

Among the negroes about this gum copal 
camp were many albinos, or white negroes, 
as they are called. The skin of these people 
is of a pinkish white; their lips are red; their 
hair is white or of a light straw color and is 
short and curly. They have eyes of a rosy 
white, with gray pupils, and the light makes 
them squint their eyes until their foreheads 
are a mass of wrinkles. 

Like all other negroes, the people of U-za- 
ramo believe in evil spirits and witchcraft, or 
black magic. Their chief can sell into slav- 
ery or order burned any one accused of black 
magic. If the medicine man, or witch doctor, 
accused any of his people of using black 


NEARLY RAN US CRAZY. 


19 


magic, which was bringing bad luck on their 
neighbors, the chief would order all those 
that he accused to be burned to death. 

As we marched through the woods along 
the path that led from the gum copal diggings, 
we saw piles of ashes with charred bones 
among them. In some of the ash piles the 
bones were very small, showing that little 
children had been burned to death for fear 
that they would grow up to use black magic 
as their parents were supposed to have done. 

Each night after our camp was made and 
our supper was over the negro servants be- 
gan to dance and sing, clapping their hands 
and jingling small bells strapped to their legs. 
The negroes have no songs, but repeat sense- 
less words over and over, keeping time with 
the music. At first all this seemed very funny, 
but as it was kept up night after night it grew 
so tiresome that it nearly ran us crazy. We 
would have made them quit this constant 
dancing and singing, but we knew that if we 
did that many of these negroes would run 
away; and as we were now about to enter 
U-za-gara, or the country of Gara, where we 
expected to find much big game, we wanted 
all the men we could keep with us. 


20 


WILLIE WYLD. 


It was in U-za-gara that Dr. Wesley had 
last been heard from. Of course we were 
anxious to learn all we could about the coun- 
try and its people, but we found the poor na- 
tive negroes shy and timid. They had no 
clothes, but some wore about their waists a 
piece of cloth or strings made of bark. War 
had been made on them so often by the stron- 
ger negro tribes and the Arab slave hunters 
that they would run from their villages of 
little grass houses to the mountains and hide 
in the forest if they heard of any strangers 
being in their neighborhood. These people 
knew that if they were caught by negro chiefs 
who had large armies they would be sold to 
the slave trader and taken away from their 
country to work for the Arabs or for white 
people. 

As soon as the negroes of U-za-gara 
learned that it was not our intention to burn 
their village and sell them into slavery, they 
came to our camp to sell us food for beads 
and wire. Although some of our servants 
could talk with these negroes and tell us 
what they said, I made up my mind to learn 
the language, which has many signs and few 
words, and before long my friends were 


A MAN-EATING LION. 21 

surprised to see how well I could talk with 
them. 

After many days’ march through U-za- 
gara, we arrived at a part of the country 
where wild animals like to live. Every day 
negroes coming from the north would bring 
us news of having seen elephants, buffaloes, 
and rhinoceroses roaming through the jun- 
gles and high grass. One night we were sit- 
ting around our camp fire when some negroes 
told us of a man-eating lion that had once 
killed so many of the U-za-gara village peo- 
ple and that they were about to move their 
houses to another part of the country so as to 
get away from the savage beast. But when 
they heard that a white man with some negro 
hunters was coming in the direction of the 
village, their chief sent men to ask him to 
come and kill the lion. I got those negroes 
to tell me about the killing of the lion and how 
long a time it had been since the white man 
was in their country. They told me that soon 
after the man killed the lion a negro chief 
from a country far to the north of them came 
with a large army and made war on their peo- 
ple. The white man was wounded and taken 
prisoner, with a number of negro men, women. 


22 


WILLIE WYLD. 


and children. The chief had taken this white 
prisoner to the far-away country, where he 
intended to keep him a prisoner until the 
white man taught him how to make his black 
skin white and his kinky hair grow straight. 

After hearing what these people had to say, 
we felt sure that this man who had been taken 
prisoner was Dr. Wesley, and we were anx- 
ious to get north as fast as we could. But 
each night the savage animals were getting 
more dangerous, and we had to stop our 
marching each day in time to build a thorn 
fence about our camp. To further protect 
ourselves, we put our guards to watch while 
we slept. Even then we did not know at what 
moment a lion or panther might kill a guard 
and rush into our camp and carry some one 
off to be fed to her young. The roar of a 
lion could be heard sometimes, but the negroes 
said that he was three or four miles away. 
They told me that the lion roared at sundown 
to scare other animals, so as to get them run- 
ning about the forest that he might catch one 
when it came his way. 

It was not long before I learned that this 
was true, for one evening after we had made 
our camp the very ground under our feet was 


LION NEAR OUR CAMP. 


23 



shaken by the awful roar of a lion. The ne- 
gro men became so frightened that some of 
them refused to get away from the camp fires ; 
and it was not until the lion had ceased to roar 
that General Kermit could make them cut 
thorn bushes to build a fence around the 


The lion roars. 

camp. After we were safely fenced in, we got 
everything ready to hunt down the lion early 
the next day. We knew that he must have his 
home somewhere near our camp. 

It is now time to close, but when we meet 
again I will tell you the story of our lion hunt. 



Second Evening, 


T his is the time that I promised to tell 
you about my first lion hunt in Africa. 
The sun was just peeping through 
the trees, making the dewdrops sparkle and 
shine, and the birds were singing, the monkeys 
chattering, and the air was cool and refresh- 
ing as we started in search of the lion’s tracks. 
We did not expect to see the lion, for, unless 
a lion is very hungry or thirsty, it seldom 
leaves its hiding place during the daytime. 
All we could hope to do was to track him to 
his den and watch for him to come out at sun- 
down. If we could find a path made by ante- 
lopes, giraffes, zebras, buffaloes, and other ani- 
mals leading to a pool or stream of water where 
these animals went at night to get a drink, we 
should be almost sure to get a shot at the lion. 
It is near such drinking places that a lion hides, 
and, should some animal come near him, with 
a tremendous bound the lion springs upon him. 
(24) 


THE LION HUNT. 


25 


With one blow of his powerful paw he breaks 
the animal’s back or crushes its head as if it 
had been an eggshell. If we could find a 
lion’s tracks in a path that led to such a wa- 
tering place, some of our men would hide in a 
tree near by and kill the lion when he came in 
the evening to catch an animal for his supper. 

We had not been long on our hunt when 
we were sure that there had been two lions 
in the neighborhood of our camp, for we 
found tracks that led toward the river and 
others that led in the direction of the hills. 
General Kermit, with some of his men, took 
the path that led to the river. He told me 
to take some of the negroes and follow the 
lion’s tracks that led toward the hills. We 
worked our way as best we could through the 
bushes, vines, and trees, for in many places 
the jungle was so matted that we had to crawl 
along on our hands and knees. In this way 
we followed up the tracks to a place where 
there was a steep blufif. Once there was a 
river at the bottom of this blufif, but now there 
was nothing but a dry bed of rock and sand. 
The lion had gone down this blufif. 

The negroes would go no farther, as they 
were afraid that the lion’s home was near by 


26 


WILLIE WYLD. 


and that he would spring upon them if they 
came close to his den. I felt that they knew 
more about the habits of lions than I did, and 
I would not risk my life when they told me to 
go no farther. 

We were all tired after the long, hard 
trailing through the close, hot jungle, and the 
breeze that came down the old river bed was 
cool and delightful. The negroes lay down to 
rest and were soon fast asleep. I sat upon 
the edge of the bluff looking through my spy- 
glass at the rocky, barren hills across the gulch. 
At one point a rock made a kind of shelf on 
the side of a high bluff, and it looked to me as 
if neither man nor beast could ever have 
climbed upon it without the use of a rope or 
a ladder. I looked at the high hill above this 
shelving rock and again at the rock when, to 
my great surprise, I saw a lioness standing 
there, and in her jaws she had a dead antelope. 
In a moment there came to her two little cubs 
or baby lions that looked like bull pups or big, 
fat kittens. They were not more than four 
weeks old, but the mother began tearing off 
little pieces of the dead animal and these little 
things ate the meat savagely. But when 
the mother lay down, they left the meat and 



HOME OF THE LION. 27 

began sucking their milk, like little kittens. 
With her big, rough tongue, the mother washed 
her babies by licking them all over, and she 
looked as gentle and harmless as a big pet 
cat with her kittens. There was some way 
to reach the shelving rock upon which the 


The lioness and her cubs. 

mother and her cubs lay that could not be seen 
from the place where I sat, for as I sat watch- 
ing these animals, wishing I could get the cubs 
and send them home to the zoo, the father of 
the family suddenly made his appearance upon 
the rock. 


28 


WILLIE WYLD, 


This African lion certainly deserved the 
name of “king of beasts.” I had never seen 
such a huge, magnificent, royal-looking ani- 
mal. He must have been more than three 
years old, for his long, heavy mane was in all 
its glory, which showed that he was fully 
grown. He appeared to be ten feet long from 
the tip of his nose to the root of his tail, while 
from the rock on which he stood to the top of 
his shoulder was about four feet. 

As he stood there looking over the gulch, I 
knew that no man was tall enough to see over 
his head, so high in the air did he hold it. 
This great lion had been upon the rock but a 
moment when the lioness sprang to her feet 
and, placing herself between him and the cubs, 
lashed her tail in anger. For a little while it 
looked as though they were going to have a 
fight. No animal loves and protects her lit- 
tle ones better than a lioness. Something told 
her that the father had returned home hungry 
and without food for his family and that he 
would eat his children if she did not prevent 
him. She must have had some way of telling 
her cubs to hide from their father, for they 
ran away and the mother lay down again ; but 


JUMA CARRIED MY GUNS. 29 

she watched every movement the father made, 
to see that he did not kill her little ones. 

I was too far away to take a shot at the big 
lion, but how to get any closer without his 
seeing me was the question. If I awakened 
the negroes, some of them would get scared 
and run away; and if the lion saw them, he 
would go to his den. Should he do this, I 
could not get a shot at him until he came out 
at sundown. Juma, the big, black negro who 
carried my guns, was asleep very close to me. 
I reached over and gave him a shake, and he 
opened his eyes. I told him to keep quiet and 
follow me. 

We crawled along under the bushes and 
through the grass until we reached a point 
where we could see the lion across the gulch 
directly in front of us. It was a long distance 
to shoot and kill as huge a beast as the lion 
now seemed to be, but I crawled up to one 
of the trees near the bluff and beckoned to 
Juma to bring the guns. One of the largest 
rifles was loaded with a hard bullet for just 
such an animal. Slowly and noiselessly I 
slipped the barrel of my gun through the 
bushes and, lying flat on the ground, I rested 
the gun barrel on the root of the tree. To 


30 


WILLIE WYLD. 


take sight would require only a moment, but 
I was shaking and quivering so that I could 
not hold my gun still. Before I could get over 
my excitement and quiet myself to take my 
first shot at a lion, the negroes awoke and set 
up such a yell when they found I was gone that 
the lion turned and disappeared as suddenly as 
he had come. 

The lioness went into her den, but I was not 
discouraged. I ordered Juma to go and tell 
our men where we were and have them bring 
all our water and food. I kept Juma and a 
negro named Fisi with me and sent the others 
back to camp to tell my friends that I had found 
a lion’s den and that I would remain at the 
gulch until I got a shot at the lion. 

I thought that I should have to remain until 
sunset before again seeing the beast, but, to 
my great surprise, in about three hours he 
again came in sight. This time he had a man’s 
arm in his mouth. “A man-eating lion,” I 
thought. But before I could shoot, he entered 
his den. 

Hour after hour I watched for him to come 
out, but it was not until the sun sank in the 
west and spread a red glow over the trees 
and rocks that the lion made his appearance 


The king of beasts looks up am doivn the gulch. 












32 


WILLIE WYLD. 


Upon the shelving rock. With his head high 
in the air, he came to the edge of the shelf 
and looked up and down the gulch. I lay 
close to the earth, fearing he would see me 
as I took aim at his head. Then the ground 
seemed to shake and the trees and rocks to 
quiver, for the lion had roared. It startled 
me so that, without knowing it, I pulled the 
trigger and my gun fired. The lion’s roar 
must have prevented him from hearing the re- 
port, for he stood still. I again took aim and 
fired. The king of beasts leaped forward and 
fell to the bottom of the gulch. In another 
moment the lioness came in sight, and as she 
walked up and down on the shelving rock, I 
sent two shots at her. At the second shot she 
fell over, but I was not sure that I had killed 
her. I told Juma and Fisi to lead the way down 
the blufif, for I wanted to find the lion’s body 
before night, knowing that if the hyenas found 
the dead animal before we did they would de- 
stroy his hide and tear him to pieces for their 
supper 

It was quite dark when we reached the bot- 
tom of the gulch and began our way toward 
where we thought the dead lion lay. Once I 
stopped to listen, for I thought I heard the loud. 


THE LION! THE LION! 


33 


coarse laughter or screams of human beings. 
I soon discovered that the noise was made by 
hyenas, for I could see the shadowy forms of 
these horrible, doglike animals as they ran by 
us. Their fore legs were long and strong, 
while their hind legs were short. They had 
such a sneaking, cowardly look as they went 
by that I was not afraid of them. But Juma 
said that if they found out that the lion was 
dead before we got to him they would not leave 
anything for us to show our friends as proof 
that we had killed a lion, for the hyena has 
such strong jaws and teeth that he can crush 
and eat a lion’s bones.. 

We had walked almost across the gulch 
when Fisi cried: 'The lion! The lion! Shoot 
the hyena !” 

I raised my gun and fired at one that was 
sneaking upon our dead prize. With a yelp, 
the wounded hyena ran down the gulch and 
all the others followed him. But they must 
have been very hungry, as they soon came 
back and ran round and round us, forming a 
circle. 

Juma built a fire, and we got ready to spend 
the night by the side of our huge lion. Juma 
and Fisi promised to stay awake to keep the fire 
3 


34 


WILLIE WYLD, 


burning so as to scare away the hyenas or any 
other animals that came about. As they had 
been sleeping during the day, I thought that I 
could trust them to keep watch over me and 
the dead lion for a few hours, and I went to 
sleep by our camp fire. 

Next time I will tell you what happened 
when I awoke. 



Third Evening. 


W ELL, children, I did not sleep very 
long beside our camp fire. I was 
awakened by the snoring of my two 
negroes, and, upon looking about me, I could 
see the shining eyes and dark forms of a pack 
of hyenas. They were watching us to make 
sure that we were dead or so sound asleep that 
they could rush in and tear us to pieces before 
we awoke. I fired into the pack. One tot- 
tered and fell, and the others ran away. The 
report of my gun awakened my men, and I 
made them build up the fire and drag in the 
dead hyena. It was a horrid-looking, spotted 
hyena of a grayish brown color with blackish 
stripes running along his ribs. He was about 
the size of a large dog, and on his feet there 
were four long claws that he could use in tear- 
ing the hides ofif dead animals. 

I was glad to see that it was the striped 
hyenas that were about us, for they are great 
cowards and live on the dead animals that 

( 35 ) 


36 


WILLIE WYLD. 


they find about the forest. I should have been 
very much afraid had they been spotted hyenas 
or tiger wolves, which are the largest and most 
dangerous of the hyena family. Tiger wolves 
will kill men if they find them asleep; and 
when very hungry, they will run into a vil- 



The horrid, striped hyena. 


lage and carry off any of the children that 
they can catch. I was afraid to go to sleep 
again and leave the negroes on guard, so I 
told them that they might take the skin off the 
dead beast. 

As I wanted to capture the lion cubs, at 
daylight I climbed the bluff to the place where 


WADDLED OUT OF THEIR DEN. 37 


I had seen them. I was very careful, for fear 
the mother lion was not dead. I reached the 
top of the bluff and looked over to the shelving 
rock. I could see the tail of the lioness, but 
her body was inside the den. I dropped some 
stones over the rock and finally succeeded in 
dropping one on her tail. As it did not move 
I felt sure that the animal was dead. The only 
way I could get on the rock was to be let 
down from where I stood. The lions reached 
the rock by jumping about fifteen feet from a 
path below. 

I called Juma to come to me, and while he 
was climbing to the top of the bluff I cut some 
long vines and made a rope. With this Juma 
let me down to the rock. The cubs must have 
thought that I was their father with some- 
thing for them to eat, for they came waddling 
out of their den. I caught one and Juma 
drew it up on the end of the rope. The other 
little fellow was not so easily caught. I had 
to crawl over the dead mother to get him. 
In feeling for the cub I put my hand on the 
skulls of men the lion had brought as food 
for his little ones. Juma took one cub under 
his arm and I took the other, and we started 
back to our camp. When we came near the 


38 


WILLIE WYLD. 


dead hyena, the little lions wanted to get away, 
and when we would not turn them loose the 
little rascals tried to bite us. 

Fisi cut a slice of the hyena into tiny pieces 
and fed the cubs. The little fellows were so 
hungry that I thought they would never get 
enough. The question that now had to be an- 
swered was how to get the cubs, the lion’s skin, 
our guns, and the other things back to camp. 

It was while planning some way to do this 
that I saw the black forms of a band of negro 
men moving toward us. They carried spears, 
bows, and arrows, and looked like savages 
going to war. They had not seen us, and we 
hid behind some large rocks. I gave Juma 
and Fisi our guns, while I stood with my pis- 
tols in hand. Upon seeing the fire and the 
dead hyena, the band of negroes halted. We 
knew that they would soon find us, so Juma 
called and asked what they wanted. They told 
him that they were hunting a man-eating lion 
that had killed many of their people. The lion 
had killed a man the day before, but they had 
given the lion such a close chase that he had 
bitten off the man’s arm and dropped the body. 
Juma told them that a white man had killed 
the lion. The negroes seemed to be pleased 


DID NOT GET A SHOT. 39 

at this, but could not understand how one 
man could kill a lion. They were overjoyed 
when Juma showed them the lion’s skin and 
told them that the white man would give them 
the lion to eat if they would help him get back 
to camp. They soon had fires burning and lion 
meat was being broiled, baked, and smoked. 
The negroes were so greedy that they did not 
give the meat time to cook, but took it from 
the fire and ate it half done. All that they 
could not eat was packed up and taken to their 
homes. 

As soon as the feast was over, Juma and 
Fisi, shouldering our guns, made the negroes 
carry our things to camp. There I learned 
that General Kermit and his hunters had re- 
mained in a tree at the watering place all 
night, hoping to get a shot at a lion. Al- 
though they heard one close to them lapping 
water, in the shadowy light the tawny color 
of his hair made him look so much like the 
rocks and bushes that they could not see how 
to shoot him. They wanted to go again some 
other night, but could not because our negro 
servants and porters were giving us a great 
deal of trouble. 

General Kermit had given some of our men 


40 


WILLIE WYLD. 


permission to return home, and I paid these 
men to take my lion’s skin and cubs to Zan- 
zibar and have them shipped to the zoo, but 
I never heard of them afterwards. As soon 
as the negroes learned that some of the men 
were to return home every one of them wanted 
to go, but General Kermit ordered them to 
pack up our things at once and get ready to 
march. This they refused to do until we 
threatened to whip them, when some wanted 
to fight. One big negro drew back his bow 
to shoot the General, but Juma, seeing him, 
quicker than a flash drove a spear through the 
man’s body and saved my friend’s life. After 
this we had little trouble with our men, and 
in a few days’ march we reached the country 
of the Gogos. 

At some places the chiefs wanted to make 
us understand that they were great men, and 
would not allow us to proceed on our journey 
for several days, claiming one-half of all the 
game we killed. We did not want to waste 
time in this way, for it required a great deal 
of food for our men. But as the negroes 
would eat anything in the way of flesh, we 
had little trouble in supplying them with fresh 
meat. 


JUMA WANTED TO RUN. 


41 


It was while hunting for any kind of game 
that Juma and I entered a dark and gloomy 
forest. The ground was wet and marshy, and 
as we neared a pool of water we heard the 
grunt of a buffalo. Juma wanted to run 
away, for these huge, strong, terrible-looking 
animals are more feared by the negroes than 



The African buffalo. 

a lion. I told Juma to give me the guns and 
climb a tree so as to be out of danger, for I 
was going to kill one of these big animals 
and let our people have plenty of good meat. 
As Juma would not let me go alone, we si- 
lently crept through the bushes until I caught 
sight of what I knew to be a true African 


42 


WILLIE WYLD. 


buffalo. He was larger than a big ox, and 
had heavy horns that grew across the top 
of his forehead and then turned up in sharp 
points. These dreadful horns were black, 
and so long and large that their points were 
four feet apart. I could see his fierce little 
eyes twinkle, and it made me shiver to think 
of what would happen if he should see me. 
This animal was of a bluish black color, and 
I knew that his hide was so thick and tough 
that a bullet could not kill him unless I was 
within close shooting distance. 

There were a number of other buffaloes 
having a good time wallowing in the mud and 
slush, but as every herd always puts out 
guards to give them warning when there is 
danger, I knew that it would be a hard matter 
to get close enough to them for a dead shot. 
As noiselessly as we could, we worked our 
way toward one buffalo that was standing 
guard for the others. He had not seen us; 
but when I got close enough to shoot, some 
birds that were on his back saw me and, with 
loud screams, flew up into the air. These 
birds live on the bugs and insects that they 
find on these animals, and their screams warn 
their friends of danger. 


THE GUN FAILED TO FIRE. 


43 


But the birds had not been quick enough, 
for before the buffalo had time to move I fired. 
The big animal staggered as he followed the 
others, that now ran away. I ran after him, 
and, just as we reached an open place in the 
forest, I sent another bullet into the buffalo. 
The mad, wounded animal could now see me, 
and at my second shot he turned and rushed 
toward where I stood. My only hope was to 
kill him before he got to me. Taking good 
aim, I pulled the trigger, but the gun failed 
to fire. I snatched the other gun from Juma 
and fired as he was almost upon me. It was 
a lucky shot, for the buffalo fell and did not 
try to get up. I turned to look for Juma, but 
he was running away as fast as his bare legs 
could carry him. 

With Juma it was a case of jumping out of 
the frying pan into the fire. The buffalo that 
he had run from was dead, but now I saw one 
coming from the forest and making for Juma. 
He was too far away for me to kill with my 
rifle and Juma would have to run for his life. 
He must reach a tree before the buffalo could 
get to him or he would be a dead negro. It 
was plain that my man would be overtaken 
before he could reach a tree, so I ran across 


44 


WILLIE WYLD. 


the field to head them off. In this way I came 
close enough to take a shot at the huge ani- 
mal. I must have hit him in the shoulder, for 
he now ran along limping and did not over- 
take Juma before he had reached a tree and 
swung himself up by a limb. I reloaded my 
guns and had gone to the tree that had saved 
Juma when the buffalo rushed at me from 
among the bushes. My gun barrel was al- 
most on the beast’s head when I fired. The 
ball entered his brain, for he dropped in his 
tracks. We now had enough meat to last our 
people for a long time. I had had all the buf- 
falo hunting that I wanted and was ready to 
go back to camp. 

Now you may go home and to-night dream 
about buffaloes. Next time I shall have sev- 
eral strange things to tell you. 



Fourth Evening. 

^OW, children, Juma would not go 
with me to the camp until he had 
cut two poles and driven one beside 
each dead animal. On each pole he tied a 
piece of white cloth. He said that he did this 
to scare away the lions so that they would not 
get our meat before we could get back from 
camp with help. I laughed at him for think- 
ing that a lion would be afraid of a little 
piece of white cloth, but he said that a lion 
was so afraid of being trapped that when he 
saw the strange-looking cloth waving in the 
wind he would not go near the dead animals. 

On our way to the camp we kept a sharp 
lookout for any buffalo that might be hidden 
in the forest, but we did not see an animal 
until we came upon an open place where ante- 
lopes love to eat grass. Then I saw what at 
first I thought to be some kind of buffalo, but 
as the animal came toward us it looked as 

( 45 ) 


46 


WILLIE WYLD. 


though it must be some strange kind of horned 
horse. Upon seeing me, this animal whisked 
his long white tail and suddenly jumped into 
the air. This seemed to be a signal of warn- 
ing to a large herd of them, for at once a 
number of them made their appearance in the 
tall grass and, like angry, impatient horses, 
pawed the earth. Then they began running 
around and around in a circle after each other. 
They did not keep this up a great while, for 
the leader started toward Juma and me, with 
the herd following him. 

Juma was not afraid of them, but I lost no 
time in climbing a tree. He handed me a gun 
and then hid behind a large bush. Thus we 
watched the strange-looking creatures as they 
came toward us. The animals stopped a short 
distance from where we were and for a few 
moments stood as if looking for us. Then they 
rushed on, and as they passed I saw that they 
were gnus. I shot two of them, thinking that 
as they belonged to the antelope family their 
meat must be good to eat. 

I was afraid that the herd of gnus might 
circle about and return so I remained in the 
tree. Looking out far away across the plain, 
I discovered a band of men marching in our 


I DID NOT SHOOT. 


47 


direction. They had scared up a herd of harte- 
beests, and some of the herd ran close enough 
to us for me to have shot some of them. The 
shape of these animals reminded me of a deer. 
They were of a grayish brown color with a 
stripe on their faces and one along tjjeir backs. 
Their horns were very long, being thick and 



I saw they were gnus. 

knotty next to the head and curving backward 
to sharp points. 

I did not take a shot at these animals for 
two reasons. One was that my shoulder was 
badly bruised, caused by the big guns kicking 
me when I shot the buffalo; the other was 
that I did not want the men who were follow- 
ing the hartebeests to find us. 

After the herd of animals had passed, Juma 
said: 'T am sure that the chief of the village 


48 


WILLIE WYLD. 


has sent those men to claim his part of the 
dead animals, as that is the custom of this 
country/’ 

‘'How did he know that we had killed the 
buffalo?” I asked. 

“O,” replied Juma, “they seem to have some 
way of finding out everything that happens in 
their neighborhood.” 

Juma was right, for the negroes came to 
where we were and told us that their chief 
had sent them for his part of the game. They 
wanted to take him half of each one, but I 
would not allow them to cut up all our game. 
I told them that they might take one buffalo 
and one gnu. At first they refused to do this, 
but Juma settled the matter by allowing them 
to take two of the largest and best of the dead 
animals if they would assist us in getting our 
meat to the camp. 

It was night when we reached our friends. 
The wind was blowing with such force that I 
looked for our little huts to be carried away. 
As soon as the wind quieted, it seemed that a 
waterfall from the sky was pouring upon our 
camp. The awful claps of thunder and the 
bright and vivid flashes of lightning that are 
seen only in an African storm, together with 


TO THE COUNTRY OF THE MOON. 49 

the roar of lions, made such a dreadful night 
that no one dared to sleep. 

Toward morning the clouds rolled by and 
the stars came out. When the sun rose, we 
could see from the tracks that a leopard had 
carried off one of our goats and a lion had 
captured one of the donkeys. Our negroes 
were cross and did not want to go on the 
march, but General Kermit made them pack 
up our camp things and as soon as breakfast 
was over we were on our way to the Country 
of the Moon. 

Our path led through forests and over plains 
covered with high grass. There was plenty 
of game, and we had all the shooting we 
wanted. It was here, while I was out hunting, 
that I was nearly killed by a wild boar. 
This hog was as large as a small cow. He 
was long, thin, and of a dark brown color. 
Bristles covered his body, and those along his 
back stood straight up when he made a rush 
at me. If I had not killed him at the moment 
I did, he would have ripped me open with his 
long tusks, which were about ten inches in 
length. These wild boars are not afraid of 
anything. Even lions and leopards will turn 
out of their path and let them pass. 

4 


50 


WILLIE WYLD, 


Among the game brought into camp by 
other members of our party was a big-headed, 
ugly-looking beast called a wart hog. One of 
our party had killed a beautiful animal known 
as the koodoo. The koodoo is a kind of ante- 
lope, but in shape and color it reminded me of 
an elk. Its horns were three feet long and 



The wild boar's attack. 


twisted somewhat like a corkscrew. There 
was great rejoicing among our negroes over 
this animal. They are not only very fond of 
the meat, but are so fond of the marrow of the 
bones that they will not wait for them to be 
cooked but will at once break them open and 
eat the raw marrow. 


ARAB SLAVE TRADERS. 


51 


For some reason the chief in that part of 
the country did not send to claim half of what 
we killed, but we met a band of Arabs who 
asked us to sell them some of our fresh meat. 
We divided our game with them, and for a 
few days we camped together while our men 
rested. 

The Arabs were dark-skinned, savage- 
looking men who were on their way to the 
seacoast with a number of negro men, women, 
and children. These they expected to sell to 
a slave buyer who had a ship to take them to 
some far-away country where he would sell 
them to any one who wanted to buy negroes 
for slaves. The Arabs were kind to us, but I 
found out that they were very cruel to the 
poor slaves. To prevent these negroes from 
getting away, they tied some of them together 
by ropes around their necks. Others were 
chained together with slave chains. To keep 
the strong men from running away, the Arabs 
yoked one to another by tying the forked end 
of a limb about the back of one man’s neck 
and tying the other end under the chin of the 
man behind him, thus binding them together. 
In case one of these men thus yoked -got away 
the Arabs put the other one to death. 


52 


WILLIE WYLD. 


These negroes not only had to bear the 
burden of this heavy piece of wood, but they 
were made to carry elephant tusks and other 
things that the Arabs wanted taken to the sea- 
coast. I learned that if any of these men or 
women got sick or became unable to carry the 
load that was put upon them they were left in 
the woods to die. To make sure that they 
were not pretending that they were sick, these 
cruel Arabs tied them to trees so that they 
would die of starvation or be eaten by wild 
animals. 

Among the slaves that the Arabs had bought 
was a woman who was so much better looking 
than any of the other negroes that I asked 
Juma to talk to her. We learned that she was 
the wife of a man named Pokino, who was 
the headman of a small village. The woman 
had been on a visit to her brother, who was 
also a chief, or headman, of a village. While 
she was visiting her brother the Arabs came 
along and he sold her to them. She seemed 
to be more grieved than the other slaves at 
her condition, and mourned that the wife of a 
headman should be sold into slavery. I told 
the General about the woman. As we were 
going in the direction of her country, he 


CALLED HER QUEEN Y, 


53 


bought her from the Arabs for five dollars. 
This was a large price, for in that part of 
Africa a woman could be bought from one of 
the chiefs for two yards of calico, and in case 
of famine one could be bought for a handful 
of food. 

The woman was very happy when Juma 
told her that she was to be free and that we 
would take her back to her husband. We 
found that she was a good cook, and she sur- 
prised us by being a very hard worker about 
the camp. Like all the negroes in the coun- 
try about us, she had no clothes and had never 
worn any. We made her a skirt of some red 
cloth, which she fastened on by a draw string 
at the waist. She now claimed that she was 
white. She thought herself so much better 
than the nude negroes and put on so many 
airs while dressed up in her red calico skirt 
that we called her Queeny. 

When we were ready to take up our march, 
the Arabs told us that the negro tribes to the 
north were at war with each other, and that 
we had better remain where we were or go 
back to the sea with them. But Queeny told 
us that the Arabs were not telling the truth, 
that the only war that she knew about had 


54 


WILLIE WYLD, 


been made or brought on by the Arabs them- 
selves in order to take the natives captive, 
and that they did not want us to see how cruel 
they had been to the people through whose 
country they had marched. 

Not knowing whether to believe Queeny or 
the Arabs, we decided to go and see for our- 
selves. We traveled along the same path the 
Arabs had come, and the dreadful things they 
had done could be seen everywhere. 

On the first night we went into camp I 
heard the howling laugh of hyenas close to 
where we were seated by the fire. As it was 
a bright moonlight night, I called Juma and we 
went out to get a shot at the animals. When 
we reached the edge of the woods, in the 
moonlight I could see two hyenas. Upon 
looking around me, I saw on my right a num- 
ber of men huddled together as if asleep, while 
on my left there were two men sitting with 
their backs against trees. Juma saw the men 
almost as quickly as I did. He told me not to 
be afraid, for he believed that they were the 
sick slaves the Arabs had left and that they 
were all dead. .It made me shiver to see these 
dead creatures, some tied to the trees and the 
others lying on the ground with the slave 


THE DEAD MEN, 


55 


yokes still about their necks. Juma and I hid 
behind some trees and watched the hyenas as 
they stole toward the dead men. 

That is enough of this unpleasant part of 
the story. Perhaps you will like the next story 
better. 


Fifth Evening. 

W ELL, children, no sooner had the 
hyenas reached the dead body of one 
of the negroes than they began to 
growl and yelp; but they fussed only a mo- 
ment, for there was a flash of light from my 
gun and one of the animals plunged forward 
in a death struggle. The others ran into the 
woods. We carried the dead animal to camp 
and told our people what we had seen. The 
negroes did not care anything about what we 
told them, but Queeny said that if we stayed 
in Africa we should see many such sights. 

With the help of Juma, I could talk very 
well with this intelligent negro woman. As we 
sat around the camp fire, she told us many 
strange things about her country and its 
people. She said that she had seen but one 
white man before she saw us. He was with 
a chief who came to visit her husband. I asked 
her many questions about this chief to learn 
(56) 



NEGROES RUN FROM HOMES. 


57 


where he lived, for I thought the white man 
might be Dr. Wesley. 

I learned that the chief ruled over a country 
far to the north of us and in a part of Africa 
where the negroes would sell their brothers, 
sisters, wives, or children to the Arabs for 
beads or copper wire to wear as jewelry. A 
piece of cloth with which to ornament their 
black and greasy bodies was eagerly accepted 
in payment by these people for the relations 
they sold into slavery. 

''Why,'' said Queeny, "a chief in this coun- 
try is so cruel that if any of his people do any- 
thing displeasing to him he will order an of- 
ficer to cut off their heads. He will have his 
own wife killed in the same way if she makes 
him angry." 

One night as we were listening to Queeny 
telling of the many awful and cruel things 
that the negroes did, we heard something 
moving about in the bushes near our fire. 
Every man got his gun, and we were about 
to shoot at the moving objects when a man's 
voice called to us. We found they were ne- 
groes who had been run from their homes by 
the Arabs and had come to our camp. We 
gave them food, and I never saw men eat so 


5S 


WILLIE WYLD. 


much as they did. They ate so much that 
Queeny refused to give them any more. 

''They are like all negroes/' she said in dis- 
gust. "They can live a long time without 
food; but when they get to a place where 
there is plenty to eat, they will make up for 
all the time that they have been hungry. If I 
should let them, they would eat great quan- 
tities of food until they began to get fat, then 
they would run away; for, rather than work, 
they would starve until they got so poor that 
their ribs would show through their skins." 

One day's march brought us to the village 
where these men had lived. All but a few of 
the grass houses had been burned. The 
Arabs had destroyed the gardens and fields, 
while death and desolation were seen every- 
where. We used some of the huts for our 
camp. Although the houses in the villages 
are made of poles covered with grass and are 
without floors and windows, they are larger 
and better than the little huts that the negroes 
made of brush and grass while on the march. 
I always felt safer in one of the village huts 
than I did in a tent, for I would often be 
awakened by the roar of a lion or the scream 
and howl of hyenas. 


TO KILL LIONS AND ELEPHANTS. 39 

We learned from our men that we were now 
in Un-ya-me-zi (the country of the moon.) 
This was one of the largest kingdoms in Afri- 
ca. A few hours’ march brought us in sight of 
the village of the chief of that part of the coun- 
try. The village had a fence around it made 
of thorn bushes. This was to keep out the 
wild animals at night, and in time of war to 
prevent the enemy’s soldiers from rushing 
into the village. The houses were made of 
poles, covered with grass, plantain leaves, or 
bark. They were built in the shape of a cone, 
haystack, or old-time beehive. These huts 
were without windows, and had one little door- 
way, which was so small that the people had 
to crawl in and out. 

The chief must have known we were on the 
road to his place, for we had gone but a few 
steps after seeing the village when from out 
the grass and bushes hundreds of negro men 
appeared armed with bows, arrows, and spears. 
We halted and prepared for a fight, but Juma 
called to the negro leader: “We have not 
come to kill you like the Arabs. We have 
come to visit your chief and kill the lions and 
elephants that have been giving you so much 
trouble.” 


6o 


WILLIE WYLD, 


A messenger was sent to tell the chief, or 
king, of our friendly visit to him. The mes- 
senger soon returned to say that the king 
would be pleased to see us. Still we marched 
into the village in a way that we could defend 
ourselves should the negroes undertake to fight 
us. Near the gates of the little town, on each 
side of the road or path, were the horns of 
many dififerent kinds of animals thrust into the 
ground. They had been put there because the 
negroes thought that they would keep away 
the evil spirits or devils who might help their 
enemies in time of war. 

Great crowds of people came out to see the 
wonderful white men. Such shouting and 
noise as they made when they saw us I had 
never heard before. The women were better 
dressed than the men. They wore garments, 
the cloth of which was made from the bark of 
trees. It was as coarse and rough as coco 
matting. These garments were fastened un- 
der the arms or held in place above the waist 
with draw strings. They wore necklaces of 
beads, together with brass and copper wire 
bracelets. Wire was wound around and 
around their arms until one would wonder 
how they could move them. Great coils of 


THE MEN WORE LION SKINS. 6i 

wire were wound around their ankles and the 
lower part of their legs in the same way. Some 



Came to see the wonderful white man. 


of the men wore lion skins and big brass rings 
around their waists. Both men and women 
have their lower teeth out, and their upper 


62 


WILLIE WYLD. 


teeth are cut or filed in the shape of a ''V/’ the 
point downward. 

We were led to a grass house much larger 
than any of the others in the town. This house 
was the king’s palace. He met us in front of 
his hut and, after asking us many questions, 
ordered a slave to show us to our huts, where 
he said we might rest and eat. To the ne- 
groes’ way of thinking, this was the greatest 
kindness he could show us, for eating and 
resting are the only heaven the negro knows 
anything about. 

General Kermit and I were shown to a hut 
which was one of the nicest; but, like all the 
others, it was made of grass plastered over 
with mud. It had no windows, and the door- 
way was like the entrance to a pigsty. Weeds 
were growing thickly around it, and the in- 
side was dark and gloomy. As soon as my 
eyes got accustomed to the darkness, I could 
see big spiders in their webs on the poles that 
held up the roof. Lizards were playing hide- 
and-seek about the roof and walls, while 
armies of ants were busy with a dead rat that 
was on the dirt floor. Wasps and mud-daubers 
had built nests on the ceiling and were angry 
at strangers coming about them. But worst 


MARCHED TO THE PALACE, 63 

of all was the dreadful smell that is always 
about places where negroes have lived. The 
only furniture in the room was two benches 
made of dried clay. Our men covered these 
with skins for us to use as beds. 

As soon as we could unpack some beads and 
cloth, we sent a present to the chief, and we 
received in return a load of fruit. This fruit 
was shaped like a banana. It is called plan- 
tain, and the negroes of Africa use it in as 
many different ways for food as potatoes are 
used in other parts of the world. 

As a rule the negro chiefs expect those vis- 
iting them to make presents worth twice as 
much as the presents they make to the visi- 
tors, but to our surprise this man was very 
liberal with us. Besides the fruit, he sent us 
a cow and three goats. These were at once 
killed and devoured by our men, who did not 
seem to think or care how they would get 
meat the next day, if they could stuff them- 
selves with all they could eat in one day. 

As soon as the chief thought that we were 
rested and had eaten enough, he sent for us 
to come to his palace. General Kermit or- 
dered our men to put on their best clothes, to 
shoulder their guns, and march to the palace 


64 


WILLIE WYLD. 


like soldiers. There we saw the king’s army 
drawn up on either side of the courtyard. 
They had their spears, bows, shields, clubs, and 
other warlike implements. Every man had 
rubbed castor oil and rancid butter on his 
skin until he shone in the bright sunlight like 
a piece of patent leather. Our men were so 
well armed with guns, pistols, and knives, and 
marched along in such a soldierly fashion that 
those negro warriors could not have whipped 
us if they had tried. 

General Kermit made the chief a present of 
some beads and calico, which pleased the 
black man very much. After talking awhile 
with him, it was agreed that we should go on 
an elephant hunt with the king and his hunt- 
ers. The hunters were ordered to get ready 
to start with us early the next morning. All 
that day the chief’s men drank a beer called 
pomhe, which is made from the fruit of the 
plantain. 

The women marched about the village 
shouting, singing, dancing, and playing as if 
they were elephants, lions, and buffaloes. 
Even mothers with children strapped on their 
backs joined in the noise and exercises, some 
howling and swaying themselves from side to 


CARRIED A B URN IN G STICK 65 

side to imitate the way the elephant walks. 
Others made awful sounds on what they called 
musical instruments. This running, jumping, 
and dancing made these people very hot, and 
the odor given off by their bodies was sicken- 
ing. All this noise and dancing was done to 
drive away the devils or evil spirits that the 
hunters might have good luck. 

Early the next morning the king’s hunters 
came out of their houses armed with spears, 
bows, and arrows. Each man carried a stick 
of wood that was burning at one end, so that 
they should not be without fire while on the 
hunt. They held the firebrand just in front 
of their mouths that they might blow on it and 
keep the coals alive and at the same time pre- 
vent the dreaded cool morning air from get- 
ting into their lungs. 

General Kermit had ordered our people to 
be ready to go with the hunters. I had load- 
ed my big elephant guns with hard bullets and 
packed up enough of the same ammunition for 
a long hunt. Juma carried my big guns, and 
I carried a little rifle that T might kill some of 
the small animals for food. 

Just at sunrise we began our march, the 
king’s magician, or hoodoo doctor, leading the 
5 


66 


WILLIE WYLD. 


way. He had on all kinds of charms, amulets, 
lucky pieces, and hoodoo bags. The negroes 
believed that this wonderful man could take 
them to a place where they would find many 
elephants and that his charms would give 
them good luck. 

Not far from the village we came to a pool 
at which some animals were drinking. Over 
one of these animals there was what seemed 
to be a kind of huge umbrella growing out and 
around a tree, the trunk of which made the 
handle. Hundreds of birds the size of spar- 
rows were flying about the tree. I learned 
from Juma that the umbrella-shaped object 
was the home of all these birds, and that from 
three hundred to six hundred birds lived in 
the three hundred rooms or nests in the um- 
brella-shaped house that they had built. These 
birds are known as the ''African social gros- 
beaks.’’ The negroes never disturb these 
nests, for they think that the birds keep away 
evil spirits. For this reason the natives are 
always glad to have the birds build their nests 
in or near their villages. 

In the evening we came to a part of the 
country where there were pools of water, few 
trees, and much tall grass. Seeing numer- 


TRACKING THE RHINOCEROS. 


6Z 


ous tracks of lions, elephants, and buffaloes, 
we went into camp and prepared to begin our 
hunt early the next morning. 

The negroes are not good at hunting or 
tracking animals. Juma was better than any 
of the others, and he was the first one to see 
the track of a doglike animal that he told me 
was about the size of a greyhound. He added 
that some were red, some black, others yellow, 
and that they hunt ostriches’ nests to eat the 
eggs. All the negroes are afraid of this ani- 
mal, for they say he can whip a leopard, and 
that if there are many of them in a pack they 
will fight a lion. I did not care anything about 
this beast, but I wanted to follow the tracks of 
the rhinoceros, which led in the direction of a 
large pool of water that we could see shimmer- 
ing in the bright sunlight. I told General Ker- 
mit that I would take Juma and Fisi with me 
and track the monster down. 

As we slowly and carefully pushed our way 
over the plain, we had to cross places where 
the ground was wet and soft. The grass was 
so tall that no one could see us as we moved 
along. We were about to come out of one of 
these places into an open field when I saw a 
herd of zebras. They had not seen us. For 


68 


WILLIE WYLD. 


some moments I stood looking at these beauti- 
ful creamy white animals with velvety black 
stripes around their heads, necks, bodies, and 
legs. Their manes stood upright, and on the 
end of their tails was a bush of long, black 
hair. 

Now, children, I will not tell you any more 
about the zebras until our next meeting. 



The zebras had not seen us. 



Sixth Evening. 

N OW, children, Juma and Fisi wanted 
to begin shooting at the zebras that 
I was telling you about last evening, 
but I knew that they were too far away. The 
herd was coming toward the high grass, so I 
made the negroes lie down to wait until I gave 
the order to fire. The zebra is a silent kind 
of animal, and, although there were hundreds 
in this herd, they made very little noise as they 
came over the plain. Their leader was quite 
close to us when he threw his head into the 
air as though he had seen or heard something 
that scared him. I knew that he had scented 
us. He gave a low neigh and the whole herd 
started on a run. I ordered my men to fire, 
at the same time pulling the trigger of my 
gun. The report of the three guns sounded 
as one. Two zebras fell, and a third went off 
limping and gasping like a drowning man. 
With the swiftness of race horses, the others 

(69) 


70 


WILLIE WYLD, 


ran to their homes in the hills. The noise of 
our guns frightened many animals from their 
hiding places, and we could now see koodoos, 
buffaloes, and other beasts running over the 
plain. 

The negro hunters who had come with us 
from the village came running to see what we 
had killed. They clapped their hands and 
danced around and around the bodies of the 
dead tiger horses, as they called the zebras. 
There is no meat the negroes like better than 
that of the zebra, and they were not long in 
building fires and making ready for a feast. 
I was anxious for Juma and Fisi to get their 
part of the meat as quickly as they could, so I 
might track the rhinoceros, but it was a diffi- 
cult matter to get them away from the feast. 
We finally started and tracked our animal to 
the pool of water, but he had only stopped 
there for a drink and a bath. From the pool 
he had gone to the woods on the far side of 
the plain. 

We had made our way some distance into 
these woods when we heard a noise. Think- 
ing that it might be the rhinoceros and know- 
ing what a dangerous beast he is, I moved 
along very carefully, with Juma and Fisi close 


THE HERD OF ELEPHANTS. 71 

to my side. I was about to step out from be- 
hind some bushes when Juma grabbed my 
shoulder and held me back, saying, “Ele- 
phants.'' 

I peeped through the bushes and saw the 
first herd of wild elephant I had ever seen. 
There must have been fifty or seventy-five of 
them. Some were eating grass, others were 
eating the tops of young trees. These young 
trees they would push over and hold down 
while with their trunks they would pick oft’ 
to eat all the young leaves and tender twigs. 
One huge elephant was .looking up at a tree 
full of some kind of fruit. He had large tusks, 
but had at some time lost his tail in a fight. 
The tree was so large that I felt sure that he 
could not push it over or dig it up with his 
tusks. After eying it for a while and look- 
ing as if he was thinking how he could get 
the fruit, the big fellow ran at the tree and 
butted it. This was done with such force 
that the tree quivered and shook as though it 
had been struck by a cyclone. If a man had 
been in the tree, I believe that he would have 
been shaken out. As for the fruit, it fell in a 
shower. The elephant at once began to pick 
up each piece with his trunk and eat it. I 


72 


WILLIE WYLD, 


hurried Fisi back to tell the hunters that we 
had found a herd of elephants, and to find Gen- 
eral Kermit and show him the way to our 
hiding place. 

Knowing that elephants are fond of playing 
in the water, I felt sure that this herd was on 



The elephant butts the tree. 


its way to the pool on the plain. Each minute 
brought them nearer and nearer to us. If we 
remained where we were, they would soon find 
us and that might mean death to Juma and 
me. I wanted to keep the elephants in sight, 


WE COULD SEE THE HUGE FELLOW, 73 

yet I did not know the best thing to do. If 
we climbed a tree, they might hear or see us, 
for no animal has better hearing or a sharper 
sense of sight and smell. The elephant that 
had been eating the fruit which he had shaken 
from the tree now began to trumpet and whis- 
tle through his trunk. At first I thought that 
he had seen us and was calling a warning to 
the others, but they paid no attention to him 
and continued to eat grass and push down 
trees as they came toward us. They would 
have scented us but for the strong wind that 
was blowing from theni toward where we 
were hidden. Juma said that we must climb 
a tree; for even if the elephants passed with- 
out seeing us, they would smell us as soon as 
they got by. 

We crawled back into the woods so that we 
could not be seen, and climbed up a tree that 
would hide us from view and at the same time 
allow us to watch the herd. We could see the 
huge fellow that had shaken down the fruit. 
He was now cutting all kinds of “monkey 
shines.” He would throw up his trunk and 
trumpet and whistle as loud as a steam en- 
gine. He rooted up the ground with his long 
tusks and threw dirt into the air. Then he 


74 


WILLIE WYLD, 


danced around, ran toward the other ele- 
phants and tried to stand on his hind legs. 
If any of the other elephants came near the 
tree, he would run them away. At last he 
staggered up to the tree and, leaning his huge 
body against it, he appeared to want to go to 
sleep. All elephants are fond of the kind of 
fruit this one had eaten, although it makes them 
drunk, and this one had become so drunk that 
he could not stand on his feet without the help 
of the tree. 

The rest of the herd moved slowly by him, 
for they had quit eating and were now walk- 
ing in a line, one after another, in regular 
Indian file. To my surprise I could barely 
see the elephants after they had entered the 
woods, and I could not hear them as they 
walked. For this long line of huge monsters 
to move along like shadows without making 
a sound was the strangest thing I had ever 
seen. In front were the mother elephants 
with their little ones frisking and playing 
about like young calves. These young ele- 
phants had little tusks, which they shed just 
as a child does his baby teeth, then they get 
big tusks like the father and mother. The 
elephant mother will fight for her little ones 


THE BABY ELEPHANT. 


76 


and protect them from harm. They lift the lit- 
tle elephants over rough and dangerous places 
with their trunks, and push them up steep paths 
with their heads when going over hills and 
mountains. But I could see that these mothers 
did not like to humor their playful, pinkish 
colored babies, for one had a good deal of trou- 
ble in getting his mother to stop that he might 
get some milk. 

I had always thought that a young elephant 
sucked milk with his trunk; but when the 
mother stopped to feed her young one near 
the tree I was in, I learned that this was a 
mistake, for the young elephant threw his lit- 
tle pink trunk back over his head so it would 
be out of the way and stood right in front 
of his mother’s fore feet. He then put his 
head between her fore legs and sucked the 
milk with his mouth as a calf would have done. 

After letting the little one get some milk, the 
mother got back in the marching line just in 
front of a huge elephant with very long tusks. 
He had very big ears, and at that moment he 
held them up in a way that he might better 
hear a noise which was. being made out in the 
trees and bushes. His long trunk, which 
had been hanging down, was at once coiled 


76 


WILLIE WYLD. 


up and he stopped and wheeled about. Some 
of the other elephants did the same thing. 
Just then a two-horned rhinoceros came rush- 
ing out of the bushes. I expected to see a 
long fight between these huge animals, but in 
this I was disappointed. The rhinoceros ran 
at the elephant as though he intended to kill 
him with his horns. Just at the right moment 
the elephant turned a little to one side and the 
rhinoceros missed him. It was now the ele- 
phant's turn. Very quickly he threw his 
big foot on the neck of the rhinoceros, crush- 
ing him to the ground, sticking his long 
tusks through the rhinoceros's body with as 
much ease as though the animal had been 
made of dough. The elephant knew that he 
had killed his enemy and, pulling his ivory 
tusks out of the dead animal, he walked off to 
join his companions in their march to the pool. 

The tailless elephant that had been made 
drunk by eating the fruit was now lying on 
the ground under the tree fast asleep. He 
was snoring so loud that he could have been 
heard a long distance away. Juma and I 
slipped down from our safe places in the tree, 
and we could see the sleeping elephant lift his 
huge ear and let it fall with a slap and a pop 


ON THE WATCH FOR DANGER. 


77 


on his neck. Juma wanted to kill the sleep- 
ing elephant, saying that if he had a sword 
he would cut off the elephant’s trunk and then 
he would soon die. But I did not want to 
scare the herd of elephants, for I hoped that 
we could kill several of them when General 
Kermit came with the negroes to help us. So 
we let the sleeping elephant alone and began to 
follow the herd. 

We had to go very slowly and carefully, 
for we did not want them to see us and change 
their minds about going to the pool. Nor did 
we want to run upon one of these huge beasts 
that might have become tired and was taking 
a nap as he leaned against some big tree. 
Neither did we want to come upon one that 
had dropped behind the herd. 

An elephant can move about the jungle with 
so little noise and his hide is so nearly the color 
of the trees and other things in the forest that, 
although he may be of huge size, it is difficult 
to see or hear him in the woods, even if he is 
but a short distance away. But we kept a 
sharp watch for danger. Working our way 
along through the trees and underbrush, we 
reached the edge of the woods when we saw the 
herd of elephants far out on the plain. They 


78 


WILLIE WYLD. 


were not only having a good time eating the 
long grass, but with their trunks they were 
pulling up great bunches with the dirt cling- 
ing to the roots, and were whipping themselves 
on their backs with it. They did this to drive 
away and kill the insects and bugs that pes- 
tered them. I could see that the elephants 
were having a good time, and knowing that 
each one would want to eat about one thou- 
sand or eighteen hundred pounds of grass or 
about as much as two horses could draw, I 
knew we should have to remain in the woods 
for some hours. 

Juma hid under some bushes, but I climbed 
one of the trees that I might watch the herd. 
With my field glass I looked in every direction 
over the plain. Far away over the billowy sea 
of waving grass was the pool of water shining 
in the bright sunlight, while the heat waves 
floated and fluttered above it like a bridal veil 
in the breeze. At the west end of the pool I 
could see the negroes whom Fisi was sending 
to me. From their actions I knew that they 
had seen the elephants. From time to time I 
would look over the plain in search of Gen- 
eral Kermit, but I could not see him or any 
of his party. 


THE WATER BATTLE. 


79 


Juma had gone to sleep, and I was getting 
tired of my place in the tree when I saw that 
the elephants were making a dash for the pool 
of water. In they went, and no set of school- 
boys ever had more fun or cut more capers 
than those monsters. They had a water bat- 
tle almost as soon as they got into the pool. 
One would fill his trunk with water and spurt 



The elephants playing in the pool. 


it at the elephant nearest him, sometimes hit- 
ting him full in the face. Sometimes one 
would fill his trunk full of water and wash 
himself off as a man would wash off his horse 
with a hose pipe. The mothers picked up their 
little ones with their trunks and, holding them 
up out of the water, they would swim to the 
far side of the pool. The older calves would 


8o 


WILLIE WYLD, 


get on their mothers' backs and ride as they 
swam from place to place. 

I called to Juma to come up into my tree 
and look at the elephants through my field 
glass. He had never before looked through 
field glasses and was much surprised to see 
how close the elephants seemed when he looked 
at them. He told me that some elephants 
could swim for five or six hours at a time in 
water that was not cold ; but should they come 
to cold water, they would quickly cramp and 
drown. 

I could see that the negroes had made their 
way to the west side of the pond, and every 
now and then they would cross some open place 
in the grass. The elephants had seen them, 
too, and were coming out of the water as fast 
as they could. I wanted to go and join in the 
hunt; but Juma told me to stay where I was, 
for the elephants would come back to the woods 
and we could get a shot at them. 

I think this is enough about elephants for 
this time. 



Seventh Evening. 

C HILDREN, you will remember that in 
our last story Juma said that we had 
better remain in the tree where we 
were. He was right; for when the elephants 
left the pool, all the herd came toward us, ex- 
cept the huge fellow with the big tusks that 
had killed the rhinoceros'. He had remained 
at the pool until the mother and baby ele- 
phants had gotten out and were running to- 
ward the woods. The negroes had separated 
him from the herd and were circling around 
him like a number of children playing frog in 
the middle. I expected to see the elephant get 
out of the circle by tramping the negroes to 
death and join his companions. 

Just at this moment I saw General Kermit 
and Fisi come out of the tall grass. They 
were running toward me, followed by the herd 
of elephants. All the elephants, both old and 
young, were making a great noise by whis- 
6 (81) 


82 


WILLIE WYLD. 


tling and bellowing through their trunks. 
They had their ears up and thrown forward, 
their tails were straight out in the air, and 
I knew from their looks that they were in a 
rage and would kill anything that came in 
their way. There never was a herd of wild 
horses that ran faster than this herd of ele- 
phants. They gained so rapidly on General 



Chasing the General. 


Kermit and Fisi that it seemed to me that they 
would be overtaken and trampled to death be- 
fore they could reach the woods. My friend 
must have thought that as he had a long 
start of the elephants he could get to a tree 
before they overtook him ; but in this he was 
mistaken, for the elephants were at his heels. 
I called to him, and he ran toward me. As 
yet the distance was too great for me to shoot 
and kill the elephant which was so close on 


THE HERD RAN BY. 


83 


General Kermit that he could not stop to turn 
and shoot him. I had my big elephant gun 
ready to fire at the moment I thought that it 
would do any good. The elephant was so 
close to my friend that he reached out his 
trunk to catch him ; but General Kermit 
sprang out of the way, and as he did so I 
fired. The huge beast stopped a moment, but 
turned again on the General. Then came the 
report of his gun, and the elephant dropped 
to his knees and rolled over. 

The elephants behind him were coming at 
such a rapid rate that they could not stop, and 
two of them fell over their dead companion. 
It was this that saved the General and Fisi, 
for before the animals could get up my friends 
had reached the forest and were climbing up 
trees as fast as scared monkeys. As the herd 
ran by I fired several times at them; but as 
the elephant’s hide is an inch thick, I am quite 
sure that my bullets did not hurt them very 
much. 

The herd was soon out of sight, and I 
looked through my field glass to see what the 
negroes were doing with the elephant about 
which they had formed the circle. Although 
they had stuck many spears into him, he was 


84 


WILLIE WYLD. 


still fighting them. One of the negroes would 
leave the circle in front of the elephant and run 
toward him. He would try to catch the man but 
while he was chasing this negro the men behind 
would run up close enough to him to stick 
their spears in his thick hide. The beast 
would turn to kill them, but they would run 
and dodge about so that he could not catch 
them. While the animal was running after 
the spearman, the negroes in the circle behind 
him, like their friends, were throwing their 
spears into his body. Again the elephant 
turned on his tormentors in his rear. The ne- 
groes continued to keep the elephant turning 
and charging until the old animal was stuck 
so full of spears that he reminded one of a 
huge pin cushion with giant pins sticking in 
it. The last time he turned to chase his tor- 
mentors he paid no attention to those behind 
him who were using their spears. He just 
kept right on after those in front of him and, 
with his trunk, grabbed one of the men. Lift- 
ing him high into the air, he slammed him 
against the ground and stepped on the body 
as he ran toward us, followed by all the ne- 
groes. Some were shooting him with arrows, 
and others were spearing him. All our party 


TWO DEAD ELEPHANTS. 


85 


climbed down from the tree and ran to help 
the negroes by using our guns. Before we 
had time to reach them the elephant tottered 
and fell and soon died. 

There was such great rejoicing among the 
negroes over the killing of two elephants that 
they had forgotten all about their dead com- 
panion. We had to make some of them go 
with us to find the dead man's body. When 
we found it, I believe that every bone was 
broken. The elephant had mashed it into a 
jelly. The negroes wanted to throw the poor 
fellow's body into a clump of bushes and let 
the hyenas eat him, for they did not want the 
work of making him a grave, but 'General 
Kermit made them dig a grave and bury the 
body. We then put some rocks and brush 
over it to keep the animals from digging it up 
and to mark the grave so that his wife and 
family might find the place if they wanted to. 

When returning to the elephant that the 
negroes had killed, we found them singing and 
dancing around the dead body. When they 
wearied of this, they carefully cut out the ele- 
phant's tusks, and, removing the big nerves 
that are in each one, they devoured them with 
a relish. 


86 


WILLIE WYLD. 


Although the African elephants are the 
largest in the world, this one was the largest 
that General Kermit had ever seen in Africa. 
I measured one of the monster’s legs, just a 
little above his foot, and found it measured 
five and a half feet. I knew from this that 
the animal was eleven feet high, for twice 
around any elephant’s leg will give his height. 

On each foot there were four huge nails or 
claws which he could use when climbing up 
or down steep hills. By the use of these claws 
he is able to go over rough and steep places 
where horses would fear to tread. That he 
might walk with ease, and to prevent his 
cushion-like feet from getting bruised or sore, 
they were covered with horny plates, or scales. 
These horny plates grew on his feet somewhat 
like scales on a fish. 

This elephant’s tusks were about ten feet 
long and must have weighed one hundred and 
fifty pounds each, for it required two strong 
men to carry one of them any distance. His 
trunk was about seven feet long, and to me 
this was the most wonderful part of the ani- 
mal. It is used to smell with, and so good use 
can he make of it for this purpose that he can 
scent other elephants when they are miles 


THE ELEPHANTS TRUNK. 87 

away. He can use it as an arm, a hand, or 
a finger, for with his trunk he can pick up a 
pin or pull up a tree. With it he feeds him- 
self and sucks up water and squirts it into his 
mouth when thirsty or over his back when he 
is hot and dusty. He also fills a water bottle, 
or stomach, with water ; and when on long, dry 
marches, he will use his trunk to suck back 
the water to quench his thirst or cool off his 
back. With his trunk an elephant will beat 
the ground in front of him to find out if it is 
solid or if there are any traps in his path. 
On hot days, when the flies and insects annoy 
him, he will break off a branch from a tree 
and use it with his trunk to brush them off as 
he marches along. In fact, there are few 
things that an elephant cannot do with his 
trunk, even using it as a terrible weapon in 
killing a lion. Should it be cut off, the 
animal would soon die, for he could get nei- 
ther food nor water. The negroes know this, 
and one way they have of killing the huge 
beast is to slip upon him when he is asleep 
and cut off his trunk with one blow of a sharp 
sword then run away before he can get up. 

While I was looking at the elephant’s trunk, 
the negroes had been skinning the monster. 


WILLIE WYLD. 


The hide must have been an inch thick, and 
it weighed eight hundred to a thousand pounds. 
I am quite sure that it would have made a 
large wagon load for one horse to pull. When 
they cut the elephant open and took out his 
huge heart, I found that it measured more 
than three feet around. It was larger than a 
big water bucket, and must have had the pow- 
er of a fire engine to have forced the blood 
through the arteries of the huge body. His 
ears were three and a half feet long and two 
and a half feet wide. By working these big 
ears back and forth the animal can fan him- 
self and shoo away the flies. As soon as 
the negroes cut off the elephant’s trunk Juma 
looked at the animal’s teeth and said that the 
elephant was one hundred and thirty years old. 

General Kermit now ordered some of the 
negroes to go to work on the elephant that he 
and I had killed. They did not want to do this, 
saying that the one elephant would supply them 
with all the meat they wanted. But we knew 
that the negroes at the village were in need 
of all the food they could get, so we sent two 
men to tell their people about the dead ele- 
phant that they might come and get a supply 
of meat. Fires were built, and some of the 


WE EAT ELEPHANT MEAT, 


89 


negroes began to cook the elephant’s feet 
while others cut up the trunk and got it ready 
to cook. The negroes think that the trunk is 
the best part of the elephant, but I liked the 
foot, after it had been cooked to a jelly, bet- 
ter than any other part of the animal. 

Late that afternoon as our men were smok- 
ing chunks of meat over the fire to keep it 
from spoiling, we could see long lines of ne- 
gro men, women, and children coming across 
the plain. They were coming from the village. 
As fast as they arrived we put them to work, 
some to smoking meat, others to cutting the 
hides into pieces of about forty pounds each. 
The women would make these pieces of hide 
into a bundle so that one man could carry it 
to the village, where it would it be made into 
shields for the warriors of the tribe. It was 
the next day before the last load of tusks, hide, 
and elephant meat was on the way to the vil- 
lage. 

I had been so much excited by the killing 
of the elephants and so interested in them after 
they had been killed that until now I had for- 
gotten to tell General Kermit about the dead 
rhinoceros. As the negroes use the meat of the 
rhinoceros for food, we made some of thern go 


90 


WILLIE WYLD. 


with us to find the animal’s body. Juma was 
the first one to find the spot where the ele- 
phant had killed the rhinoceros. He called 
to us that the ants had been there and taken the 
animal away. I could not believe that little 
ants could carry off a huge rhinoceros, but 
when I reached the spot, there was nothing to 
see but some bones and pieces of his hide. 
Some of the negroes said that not far away 
there was an ant village where the houses were 
from seventeen to twenty-five feet high. The 
ants from this village had found the rhinoceros 
and had set to work to carry off the dead mon- 
ster. There was such a large number of ants, 
and they had worked so faithfully, that it did 
not take them so long as one might suppose 
to take the meat of the rhinoceros home. 

As we wanted to get back to the negro village 
as quickly as we could, we took a short cut 
through the woods and over a plain. In doing 
this, we had to pass near houses built by the 
white ants. These houses are made of clay 
or cement and are very strong. A herd of 
wild animals were eating grass on the plain 
about the ant village. On top of some of the 
ant houses stood animals that were on the look- 
out for the herd, for from the tops of these ant 


THEY JUMPED TO THE GROUND. 91 


hills they could see in every direction over the 
country. The moment they saw me they 



jumped from these places to the ground. This 
was a warning to the herd that danger was 


92 


WILLIE WYLD. 


near, and they all ran to the high grass, which 
hid them from sight. 

Juma broke open one of the houses and our 
negroes caught large numbers of the ants. 
These they pounded into paste and ate with 
so much pleasure that I thought I would try 
some. I found that this paste made from the 
ants tasted like sweetened cream. These white 
ants are sometimes called termites, and they 
can do many wonderful things for such little 
creatures. They can tunnel great distances 
under the ground, and it is by tunneling under 
a river that they get from one side to the other. 
These ants are the most destructive of insects. 
If they find their way into a house built of 
wood, they eat away all the inside of the wood- 
work, leaving only a thin, paperlike shell. The 
eye can detect no change, but if you should 
step on the floor it would crumble; should 
you start up the stairway, it would go to pieces ; 
and if you sat on a wooden chair it would fall 
into dust. These little rascals never cut 
through any place in the wood so that they 
can be seen. That is the reason a man’s house 
and furniture can be destroyed before he finds 
it out. 

I should have liked to learn more about how 


WONDERFUL LITTLE CREATURES. 93 

these smart little ants live, but we had to 
hurry on to the village. As we marched along 
I thought how wonderful it was that these 
little creatures could build such large homes; 
that if a man built his house in proportion to 
his size, as compared to the size of the ant, 
the man’s house would have to cover acres of 
ground. The top of his house would often be 
above the clouds. He could sit out on his 
roof and enjoy the fresh air and the moon- 
light while it would be raining on his garden 
below. 

When we came in sight of the negro vil- 
lage, I forgot all about the ants, for the vil- 
lage was on fire. 

I will now close, and I am sure that my 
story about the fire will be very interesting to 
you. 



Eighth Evening. 

I T was natural, children, for the negroes to 
get excited and run toward their burn- 
ing homes. In a few moments we could 
not see them for the bushes, but the next min- 
ute they came running back with negro war- 
riors following and shooting arrows at them. 
Some of our men were killed, many of them 
being pierced by several arrows. Juma, Fisi, 
and our gunners having hidden behind some 
rocks, refused to move, but General Kermit 
and I ran to get within shooting distance of 
the enemy. The moment we could get a shot 
without killing some of our own men we fired. 
The warriors became frightened at the report 
of our guns and halted. This gave our men a 
chance to get to us and turn on their enemy 
with their bows and arrows. 

By this time our gunners had got up enough 
courage to join us. Each one of our people 
got behind a tree or rock to protect himself 
( 94 ) 


WE SCARED OUR ENEMIES. 


95 


from the arrows of the warriors and waited 
for them to come after us. This they did in 
a few minutes. They had their spears set and 
their bows and arrows in readiness. The 
spearmen held in front of them their shields 
made of dried elephant or rhinoceros hide. 
When they were almost upon us, General Ker- 
mit gave the order to fire. The roar of our 



The negro warriors. 


big guns scared our enemies, and they turned, 
running toward the village. Our men were 
now very brave and chased the warriors, 
shooting at them as they ran. 

We hurried on to the village to find that it 
was surrounded by an army of negro soldiers 
who were trying to drive out our friends and 
kill or make slaves of them. We fired at them 
with our guns while our negroes shot them 


96 


WILLIE WYLD. 


with their arrows Not knowing what to make 
of the noise of the firearms and the arrows 
being shot into their backs, the warriors ran 
away as fast as they could. Seeing this, the 
negroes in the village left the burning houses 
to be put out by the women while they ran 
after their enemy. 

We learned that a chief from another coun- 
try had for a long time wanted to destroy this 
village and make the headman and his people 
slaves. This chief, upon learning that many 
of the people had left the village for an ele- 
phant hunt, had sent soldiers to capture and 
burn the place. Few, if any, of his men had 
ever seen a gun; and when they heard the 
firing and saw their men fall, they thought our 
witch doctors must be better than theirs. They 
thought that we had some way of killing them 
with thunder and lightning and, becoming 
frightened, they ran away. 

Some of our people helped to put out the 
fire while others assisted the wounded negroes 
within the village. 

On the morning after the fight the village 
negroes who had chased the soldiers returned, 
but an arrow had pierced the heart of their 
chieftain and he was brought home dead. As 


FUNERALS IN AFRICA. 


97 


these negroes care little or nothing for their 
dead friends or relatives, there was no sign 
of sorrow in the village. But every one was 
in a great state of excitement, making ready 
for the funeral of the chief. As to the other 
men who had been killed in the fight, a father 
or brother would pick up the dead body of his 
relative, balance it on his head, and walk with 
it to the jungle some distance from the village. 
Here he would throw the body into the bushes 
to be devoured by wild beasts. There are no 
graveyards in that part of Africa, but the 
chief was buried with the most awful and 
cruel funeral ceremonies. 

We had long before this learned that the 
native African was cruel, heartless, untruth- 
ful, and dishonest. Although we had saved 
these negroes their lives and homes, had sup- 
plied them with food, and with our guns had 
driven away their enemy who would have 
murdered them or sold them into slavery, yet 
from day to day, we could not depend on 
them for kind treatment, and General Kermit 
ordered our men to get ready to march farther 
north. But the new chief would not let us go 
until we paid him as much cloth, beads, and 
wire as had been given to the dead chief. 

7 


98 


WILLIE WYLD, 


We marched to the village, followed by little 
children and big children. Women with their 
babies in cowhide bags on their backs ran 
along with the big black men, whose bodies 
were greased with foul-smelling butter. All 
had come to beg — to beg something, it mat- 
tered not what, just so they were begging. 
Some of the boys, girls, and women followed 
us for miles and miles, yelling and howling 
more like wild beasts than human beings. 
We knew that they would fear to remain in 
the woods at night and would leave us in time 
to get home before sunset. It was past time 
for our midday rest when the last of these 
people disappeared. Our porters were grum- 
bling, a thing they were always doing, except 
when asleep or when they had their mouths 
full of food. 

When General Kermit ordered a halt, the 
sun was shining from a cloudless sky. To my 
great surprise it began to rain, although the 
shower lasted only a few minutes. I had never 
before seen it rain on a clear day, but Juma 
told me that it often occurred in that part of 
Africa. 

For several days we traveled through the 
woods and jungles and along paths just wide 


VAIN AND PROUD BEINGS. 


99 


enough for one man to walk. In some places 
the limbs of the trees came so near the ground 
that our men had to stoop to get by them. We 
stole around all the villages along the way that 
we could. We were trying to get by one of 
the largest places on the road, where the chief 
or king of U-zin-za lived, but he sent word to 
us that he had never seen a white man and 
that he would be very angry if we did not visit 
him. We knew that we should have to give 
him presents of cloth, wire, and domestic, but 
we dared not refuse to go and see him. Our 
men were ordered to dress up and look their 
best, for we were going to visit the king. As 
the negroes are the most vain and proud of 
human beings, they were willing and eager 
to obey these orders. 

Just outside this village were the devil 
churches, which were little grass huts. From 
time to time the people of the village take, 
grain and food to these churches for the evil 
spirits to eat. The negroes believe that if they 
do this the evil spirits will in turn do them no 
harm. Although the rats and mice get the 
food, the negroes say that the spirits eat all 
they want. 

We marched by these churches and entered 


lOO 


IVILLIE WYLD, 


the gate at the end of the main street of the 
village. On each side of this street leading 
to the palace were poles, and on the top of 
each pole was the head of a man that the chief 
had killed. The skull bones had been bleached 
so white by the sun that in the moonlight they 
might have been mistaken for snowballs. We 
marched to the palace between two lines of 
negro soldiers whose uniforms were brass 
wire around their arms and the lower part of 
their legs. The only clothes they had on were 
a cloth made of wooden thread that was worn 
around the waist. Their black skins were 
polished with rancid butter until they glis- 
tened in the sunlight. I thought the smell of 
these soldiers would make me sick, but our 
negroes thought the odor delightful and the 
sight a grand one. 

As we neared the palace the drums were 
beaten and the king’s officers had gathered in 
the open square in front of the palace. One 
of the attendants came forward to welcome us 
and at the same time to say that the king could 
not see the white men that day. He said that 
the king was looking into his magic horn to 
find out if the white people had an evil eye. 

Wt sent the king presents of cloth and asked 


FLAT-TAILED SHEEP. loi 

to be allowed to go on our journey, but the 
messenger returned saying that the king was 
displeased at our request and that we must 
remain until he was through looking into his 
magic horn. This man led us to some huts, and 
we prepared to make ourselves at home. Our 
negroes were greatly pleased at the presents 
the king sent us, which consisted of a load of 
plantain, a cow, a goat, and a black flat-tailed 
sheep. The sheep’s tail must have weighed 
ten pounds and was dragging on the ground. 
As the tail is by far the best part of an African 
sheep, Queeny cooked it for our supper. 

The next day the king would not see us, 
nor would he see us on the third day. We 
sent him word time and again that he must 
let us go on our journey, but he would just 
send us more things to eat, with the reply 
that there was no hurry and that we could 
wait until to-morrow. 

Our men, like all the natives, were lazy and 
they did not want to leave a place where they 
got so much more good food to eat than they 
had been accustomed to. Juma and Queeny 
had not been idle in finding out the reasons 
for the king’s keeping us and feeding all our 
men so well. Queeny had made the acquaint- 


102 


WILLIE WYLD. 


ance of the king's magician, or witch doctor, 
and he told her that his king had wanted to 
make war on a neighboring tribe, but he had 
been afraid to do so, there being a white man 
in the enemy's village who had a “hot- 
mouthed" gun. But now that his king had 
white men with the same kind of guns it was 
thought a good time to begin the war. 

We were very anxious to know who this 
white man could be, and General Kermit de- 
cided that we must find the village and see 
him. But we dared not let any one know our 
plans, for the king would get angry if he 
thought we were going to his enemy's village 
and would order every one in our party to be 
murdered. 

That night, it seems, the witch doctor was 
to make a test and tell the king if the signs 
were good for war. I wanted to know how 
these witch doctors made the tests, but I knew 
that this one would not let me come near him 
while he was at his secret and mysterious 
work, so I asked Queeny to tell me how and 
what they did. She replied that the test that 
this witch doctor was going to make was one 
of the most awful and cruel, because the ques- 
tion of going to war was such a dreadful one. 


MY VISIT TO THE WITCH DOCTOR. 103 

I learned that to make the test the heartless 
rascal would put a large earthen pot half full 
of water on a fire. Across the top of this pot 
he would place some sticks, and upon these 
he would lay a small child and a chicken. He 
then covered them with 
another large earthen pot 
just like the first, so as to 
keep in the steam. After 
they had remained under 
the pot for a certain 
length of time, this wretch 
looked in to see if the 
child and chicken were 
dead or alive. Should he 
find them dead, it was the 
sign that there must be 
no war. If he found them, 
alive, the war must be-; 
gin at once. [ 

Now, children, I did 
not want to think of any 
little child being put to death in this way, 
nor did we want these people killing each 
other in a war, so I asked Queeny to take me 
to the witch doctor’s hut. I had found out 
that of all the dishonest and lying rascals 



The witch doctor. 


104 


WILLIE WYLD. 


among the negroes these witch doctors were 
the worst. Yet these bad men, by telling the 
king that they had certain signs or dreams, 
could make him have any one put to death, 
sold into slavery, or make the king go to war. 
The African chiefs have such belief in their 
witch doctors that they will do anything these 
men tell them. Knowing this, I packed up 
some beads and other little toys that a negro 
would do anything to get and, with Queeny, 
I went to tne doctor’s hut. 

After talking to him for some time, I 
learned that the children he used in the test 
were those whose parents had died, and he 
claimed that he might as well use them in the 
test as not, for since the people in the village 
did not care what became of orphans they 
would starve to death. I let him see the beads 
and other things and told him that I would 
give him some of them if he would not use a 
child in making the test of war. He promised 
that he would make some other kind of test, 
and then I gave him some beads. He then 
wanted all the beads and toys. I told him 
that I would give him all the things if he would 
tell the king not to go to war. 

‘‘Very well,” he said, “if the white people 


NOT TIME FOR WAR. 105 

will go hunting with the king, I will tell my 
master it is not a good time for war and that 
he had better go hunting/' 

I agreed to this; but knowing that these 
people would break their promises as quickly 
as they made them, I gave him only one-half 
of the things. I told him I would give him 
the others as soon as the king said what he 
would do. 

I think this is enough until we meet again, 
then we shall see how the matter turned out. 



Ninth Evening. 


W ELL, children, as soon as I got back 
to our hut I told General Kermit all 
about the trade I had made with the 
witch doctor. He was more than pleased with 
my bargain, for we were in a country where 
there were many wild animals and much big 
game. 

That night we heard the drums beat. How- 
ever, they were not the war drums, as we had 
feared, but were drums calling a meeting of 
the king’s officers. Later in the night the 
drums beat again and we knew that the meet- 
ing with the king was over. For some reason 
Juma had been allowed to attend the meeting. 

When he returned, he told us that the king 
had appeared before his wise men and said: 
“The time has not come for us to go to war. 
I have learned from looking into my magic 
horn that we need have no fear of the white 
men having an evil eye. Go home now and 
(io6) 


A BAD MAN, 


107 


prepare for a hunt, for the witch doctor has 
told me that if we go on a hunt with the white 
man we shall have 
good luck/’ 

As Juma was tell- 
ing this the witch 
doctor came to ask 
me for the toys I had 
promised to give him 
as soon as the king 
said that he would 
not go to war. But 
when I gave him the 
things promised, he 
wanted more, and to 
keep the good friend- 
ship of such a bad 
and dangerous man 
I gave him an extra 
string of beads. 

Early the next 
morning the king in- 
vited us to call and 
see him. Upon ar- 
riving at the palace 
grounds we found that a lion’s skin had 
been spread upon the ground in front of the 



The king comes out of his hut. 


io8 WILLIE WYLD. 

king's house. On this skin a little stool had 
been placed for his throne. With the drums 
beating and the musicians playing, the king 
marched out of his hut with a leopard's skin 
over his shoulders. For a necklace he wore 
a big iron ring, while his legs and arms were 
almost covered with copper wire wound around 
them in such a way as to make what might 
be called leglets, armlets, and bracelets. He 
had no gloves or shoes, but wore rings on all 
his finge’rs and rings on all his toes. The 
king's wives and daughters, together with his 
court ladies and all his female relations, then 
marched out and took their places behind the 
king on buffalo skins, while we were seated 
in front of him on the skins of antelopes. 

Juma brought up the presents and placed 
them on the ground in front of the black rul- 
er, who began to ask questions faster than 
two men could have answered them. He 
wanted to know if all the men were white in 
the part of the world where we came from; 
if we could turn ourselves black and then get 
white again; if our women were white, red, 
or blue; if we had good witch doctors — these 
and a thousand other questions he asked be- 
fore he told us that if we would go on a hunt 


WHEN NEGRO KINGS DREAM. 109 

with him we should have good luck and find 
all the animals we wanted. Without saying 
another word to us, he ordered his men to get 
ready for the hunt. With a sign from him, the 
drums were beaten and he went into his pal- 
ace, followed by all the women. 

We marched back to our huts and found 
that the king had sent us a load of plantain 
and a cow. We knew that for this food we 
should have to send him more presents; for 
when a negro ruler gives you anything, it is 
the same as saying: ‘‘Now, you must send me 
something.” These people will not give their 
invited guests a drink of water unless they 
get something more valuable in return. 

We had been in our huts but a little while 
when a man ran in, followed by the king’s 
officers. The poor fellow begged us not to let 
the officers take him away, that they were 
going to cut off his head. We learned that 
the king had dreamed about this man three 
times and that if a king dreams about any man 
three times he has him put to death. I did 
not want the man’s head cut off because this 
foolish ruler had dreamed about him. Know- 
ing how greedy negro kings were, I asked the 
officers to take the man and I would go with 


no 


WILLIE WYLD, 


them and see if the king would not sell him 
to me. At first they would not do this, saying 
that they were afraid of the ruler. But for 
some brass wire which I gave them they took 
their chances and consented to go with me. 
I begged the king not to put the man to death, 
but he said that the man must die. I then 
offered to buy the man. After a great deal 
of talk I gave the king five yards of domestic 
for the fellow and took him to our hut. 

On the way back I saw the men who were 
going on the hunt under a long shed, which 
to them is what a club house is to the white 
men in this country. Women were bringing 
large gourds filled with pornbe for the men 
to drink while they lay about the shed and 
smoked their pipes or chewed a sweet clay that 
was brought from a clay bank near the village. 
We kept our men away from all this drinking 
and smoking, for we knew that before night 
they would be quarreling and fighting. We 
made our men pack up all our things so that 
we should not have to come back to the vil- 
lage after the hunt, but could continue our 
journey to the north in search of the white 
man. 

That we might have good luck the king or- 


BAD LITTLE MEN. 


Ill 


dered his witch doctor to lead the hunting 
party to a place where we could find big game. 
As we marched away from the village Juma 
pointed out to me hollow logs that were hang- 
ing from the limbs of big trees. 

“Those/’ he said, “are beehives, and most 
of them are full of honey.” 

I knew that the negroes were very fond of 
sweet things; for if we spilled a little sugar 
on the ground, they would eat the dirt from 
the spot as long as it tasted sweet. 

As we traveled far into the forest Juma told 
me that this or that tree was thought to be 
the home of a tribe of little men. The people 
thought that sometimes at night these little 
men would come down from their tree houses 
and, going to the door of a hut, would listen 
until they heard some one on the inside call 
the name of somebody who lived in the hut. 
Then they would call out the same name and 
shoot an arrow into the heart of whoever came 
to the door. After doing this awful deed, they 
ran back to their tree homes and hid so that 
no one could find them. 

Juma and I had traveled through the woods 
faster than the others and were some distance 
ahead of our friends when he stopped and 


112 


WILLIE WYLD. 


said, ‘That twinkling and sparkling we see 
so far ahead of us is a lake or large pool of 
water. We must keep a sharp lookout for a 
rhino, ’’ as he called the rhinoceros. 

I knew that rhinoceroses like to live in 
such a country, for they can get all the 
grass, bushes, and roots that they are fond 
of eating, while the lake furnishes them with 
water to drink and a place to wallow. Dur- 
ing the hot part of the day they sleep under 
the trees and matted vines in the dark and 
gloomy jungle. I had learned that there are 
four kinds of rhinoceroses in Africa. Of these, 
the most vicious and dangerous are the little 
black rhinoceros and the big slate colored rhi- 
noceros. The white rhinoceros is a much 
larger animal than the others, but he is not 
so fierce or dangerous. 

So when we discovered the footprints of a 
little btack rhinoceros, we knew that we were 
in great danger, for although these animals 
are big and clumsy-looking, they can move 
about the jungle almost as silently as a cat; 
and when they are lying on the ground, it is 
very difficult to see them. I knew that if I 
did stumble over one I should have to kill him 
at the first shot, for I had heard General Ker- 


A SNORT AND A WHISTLE. 


113 

mit say that hunters had rather fight any num- 
ber of lions than a wounded rhinoceros. Not 
caring to take any such chances, we waited 
for our friends to overtake us. 

General Kermit, the black king, and the 
witch doctor soon came in sight, and follow- 
ing them was the long line of negro men and 
hunters armed with their spears, bows, and 
arrows. Our men were loaded with the things 
for our journey. The head of the line had 
just reached us when we heard a snort and a 
kind of whistle. There was a sound of crush- 
ing bushes, a man was thrown high into the 
air, and the next moment a long-horned rhi- 
noceros that had run through the line of men 
disappeared in the jungle. 

The body of the man this rhinoceros had 
thrown into the air had not had time to fall 
to the ground before some of the negroes 
dropped their loads and were running away 
or trying to climb trees. Juma and I went 
to see if we could do anything for the wound- 
ed negro, but I found him so badly hurt that 
he died in a little while. 

General Kermit, Fisi, and some of the ne- 
gro hunters were chasing the rhinoceros. 
Juma and I followed as soon as possible, but 
8 


WILLIE WYLD, 


1 14 

as we could see nothing of them we thought 
it best to march to the lake and prepare our 
camp. We had taken but a few steps on our 
way back when we heard a sound like a horse 
coughing and at the same time saw a white 
rhinoceros making his way through the jun- 
gle. I motioned to Juma, and we stepped be- 



Get a shot at a white rhinoceros. 


hind a tree so as not to be seen by the huge 
animal. I was anxious to get a shot at him, 
for he was the largest one I had ever seen. 
He looked as if he was seven feet tall, and 
he must have weighed more than five horses 
if each horse weighed one thousand pounds. 
One of his horns was over three feet long, 


EACH TIME HE WAS CLOSER, 


115 

and he was plowing up the ground with it as 
fast as if it had been a steel plow pushed by a 
steam engine. 

These animals can smell and hear better 
than they can see. This one had his head to- 
ward us; but as it cannot see in front of it, 
and as the wind was blowing from his direc- 
tion, I felt sure he would not find our hiding 
place until he came near enough for me to 
get a shot at him. I made up my mind to 
let him come very close to us, for a rhinoc- 
eros has such a hard, thick hide that it is 
not an easy matter to shoot even a hardened 
bullet through it and kill the animal at one 
shot. 

Sometimes I would lose sight of the huge 
beast, for he would go into the wait-a-bit thorn 
bushes to nibble off their tender leaves. To 
me it seemed a long time before he would come 
in sight again and go to plowing up the roots 
that he liked to eat. But each time he came 
in sight he was closer to me than before. I 
could see that he kept his ears moving all the 
time. One moment the hollow part of one ear 
was to the front while the hollow part of the 
other ear was turned so as to catch any sound 
coming from the back of him. The next mo- 


ii6 WILLIE WYLD. 

ment he changed their positions so he could 
hear any noise on either side as he moved 
them back and forth. As I was watching this 
strange and continued movement of his ears 
he made his way into a clump of thorn bushes. 
This time he was out of my sight for such a 
long time that I was afraid he would go off 
and I would not get a shot at him. Or he 
might come out near our tree in such a way 
that he would see me and charge upon us with 
his dreadful horn. 

As I wondered what the beast would do, I 
noticed a little movement in the bushes, then 
not twenty feet from us I saw the head of the 
rhinoceros. As quick as thought I fired. The 
animal gave a squeal like a storm whistle on 
a steamboat and ran toward us. I fired again. 
The animal gave another and louder whistle, 
at once falling to his knees and then rolling 
over on his side as though he were dead. It 
was all done so quickly that I was sur- 
prised at what had happened. But as these 
animals, when wounded, sometimes play that 
they are dead, Juma fired another shot into 
him to make sure that he was not ’possum- 
ing.” I then sent Juma to tell the king and 
his hunters about killing the beast. Sooner 


THE KINCS DRINKING CUP. 


117 

than I had expected the king with his men 
came to see the huge white rhinoceros. 

The vain old witch doctor claimed all the 
credit for my success in killing the animal. 
He said that he must have the big horn to 
make the king a drinking cup ; for a cup made 
from the horn of a white rhinoceros would 
bring the king good luck, and no one could 
poison him as long as he used it to drink from. 

The rhinoceros’s horns do not grow out 
of the bony part of the skull, like a cow’s or 
a ram’s horns. They grow out of his skin, 
as his hair does. Yet his hide is so thick that 
the horns are as firm as a post, and it requires 
hard work to cut them off his head. As soon 
as the negroes had cut oif the horns the king 
ordered some of his men who knew how to 
skin the animal to get to work. I saw that 
his hide was as thick and hard as an inch 
board. Juma told me that even the lions would 
not try to kill a rhinoceros, because they had 
learned that even with their powerful claws 
they could not hurt him through such a thick, 
tough hide. 

If you would like to hear more about the 
rhinoceros, I will tell about another hunt some 
other time. 



Tenth Evening. 


C HILDREN, you must know that it was 
hard work to skin the rhinoceros; but 
as these negroes like his meat better 
than that of the cow, the king ordered the 
animal to be cut into pieces and smoked, for 
smoked meat does not spoil even in hot coun- 
tries. As it would require a good many hours 
to do this, I told my men to get a supply of 
meat, then we would march to the lake and 
get our camp ready for the night. Up to this 
time I had heard nothing of General Kermit 
or his party, and, being a little afraid as to 
their safety, I asked the king to send some of 
his men to look for them. 

On the march to the lake I heard a noise 
that reminded me of an elephant snoring. 

'That is a rhinoceros we hear,'’ said Juma. 
"From the way he is snoring, he is so fast 
asleep that we can slip up on the old fellow 
and kill him before he ever wakes." 

(ii8) 


A RHINOCEROS’S BEST FRIENDS. 119 

I told Juma that he might take my gun and 
our men to hunt for the animal. I followed 
them for some distance, each step bringing 
us nearer and nearer to the sound. The hunt- 
ers, who were now crawling through the 
bushes, must have been close to the sleeping 
rhinoceros, for several birds flew up into the 
air, screaming and making as much noise as 
they could. Up jumped the rhinoceros with 
a snort. He ran by the negroes and came 
directly toward me. Before I could jump be- 
hind a tree he saw me and began dancing about 
and turning around and around, grunting like 
a hog all the time. I could see the birds had 
taken their places on his back; but when the 
negroes came in sight, they flew up, scream- 
ing as before. When the animal started on 
the run, with the negroes after him, the birds 
alighted on his back, nor did they leave him 
except to fly up when he ran under bushes 
that would have brushed them off. 

These birds are the rhinoceros’s best friends 
They can see better than the huge animal and 
are always on the lookout. If they see any of 
his enemies, or if they think he is in danger, 
they will begin chattering, and from this the 
beast understands that he must either run or 


120 


WILLIE WYLD. 


fight. These birds guard the rhinoceros day 
and night. They live on the bugs and worms 
that make their homes in the wrinkles and 
under the folds of the animal's thick skin. 
Some hunters say that the rhinoceros is such 
a sound sleeper that the birds sometimes have 
to peck him in the ears to awaken him. If it 
had not been for these birds Juma could have 
gone right up to the sleeping animal and 
killed him. As it was, the rhinoceros jumped 
up and ran through the forest with the ne- 
groes after him. 

I was left alone in the wilderness of trees 
and bushes. I knew that I could not overtake 
them nor keep up with them if I did, for they 
were trained to make long runs through the 
forest when chasing down animals. I thought 
that the best thing for me to do was to find 
my way back to the path that led to the lake. 
As I hurried on I saw monkeys playing in the 
trees, and now and then a big bird would star- 
tle me with his loud cry as it flew away through 
the forest. Though I had walked a long dis- 
tance, I could not see anything of the lake, 
and I felt that I was lost — lost in an African 
forest and night upon me. I did not know in 
what direction to go. I had crossed many of 


LOST IN AN AFRICAN FOREST. 


121 


the paths that had been made by lions, ele- 
phants, buffaloes, and rhinoceroses as they 
went to and from their drinking places. What- 
ever path I took I was almost sure to meet 
some of these animals at that hour of the even- 
ing, for it is about sunset that the beasts of 
the jungles begin to make their way along the 
forest paths to their watering places. 

I had a pair of large pistols; but as far as 
the big animals were concerned I might as 
well have had two popguns, for no pistol ball 
would go through the thick hide of one of 
these big animals and kill him. Therefore, 
with all the dangers that surrounded me, it 
would have been foolish for me to blunder 
about in the dark or to remain upon the 
ground. The safest place for me was in a 
tree. I climbed one that was in an open space 
near my path, so that when the moon rose I 
could see in what direction the animals were 
going, for from them I expected to learn the 
way to the lake. 

I had been seated on a limb with my back 
against a tree for some hours before the moon 
rose. It spread a misty light over the forest. 
I had heard a lion roar and a rhinoceros whis- 
tle ; but if anything had passed along my path. 


122 


WILLIE WYLD, 


I had not seen or heard it. Now a noise came 
to my ears of animals making their way 
through the woods. Closer and closer came 
the steps. Then, to my great surprise, the 
branches of the tree over my head were shaken, 
the leaves torn to pieces, and some dropped on 
me. 

I looked up, expecting to see a monkey, 
but I saw a head pushed through the branches 
and in the bright moonlight I saw two big 
eyes. The head was shaped like that of a 
horse, but on it were two long ears and two 
things that looked like horns. The head was 
on a long, spotted, snake-like body. In the 
moonlight it looked to me as though some huge 
snake with a head like a horse was standing 
on his tail and eating the leaves off the top 
of the tree. I jumped out of the tree as if 
I had been on a springboard. The noise I 
made frightened the animal as much as he 
had frightened me, and he and others of his 
kind ran away as fast as they could. I then 
saw that what I had taken to be some terrible 
monster was the long-legged, long-necked, but 
timid giraffe, which would hurt no one. 

I climbed back to my place in the tree and 
seated myself, so that should I go to sleep I 


/ SAIV TWO BIG EYES. 


123 


would not fall. I must have been there sev- 
eral hours, for the moon was now sinking in 



It looked like a snake with a horse's head. 


the west and looked like a big, polished silver 
shield hanging in the blue sky. By its light 


124 


WILLIE WYLD, 


I could see almost as well as if it had been 
day. No sound reached my ear except the 
chirping of some birds, the hum of insects, 
and the chatter of prowling monkeys. Then 
there appeared in the open space, in the bright 
moonlight, a huge, horrid animal. It was 
almost as big as an elephant, but not so tall. 
His legs were thick, but so short that his huge 
body touched the ground wherever it was un- 
even. His big head was almost square in 
shape, while his ears were small, stiff, and 
sharp-pointed. He had no hair on his huge, 
brown body, although he had a few bristles 
on his very short tail. No lawn mower could 
have cut and cleaned away the grass better 
than this animal did as he slowly came toward 
me. He came so close to me that I could have 
dropped upon his back. Then he stopped eat- 
ing grass, lifted up his head, and listened. 
Opening his monstrous mouth, which for size 
reminded me of a whale’s mouth, he gave a 
snort. He then waddled back over the path 
he had come. 

Remembering pictures I had seen, I knew 
that this animal was a hippopotamus, or 
river horse, as it is sometimes called. I felt 
sure that he had come up out of his home in 


I FOLLOWED HIM, 


125 


the lake to feed on the grass and bushes, and 
should I follow him I could find my way to 
the lake. I slipped down from my place in 
the tree and silently crept along the path un- 
til I could see the huge animal. Hour after 
hour I followed him, hoping that he would 
soon reach the lake. But the animal took his 



Closer and closer the monster came. 


time, walking slowly and eating as he walked. 
It looked to me as if he ate as much of the 
grass and bushes along the path as several 
cows could have done, and yet he seemed never 
to get enough. 

I was anxious for morning to come; and 
when at last a gray light overspread the sky. 


126 


WILLIE WYLD. 


the hippopotamus stopped eating and, with a 
roar, hurried on. As if in answer to his roar 
I heard the most awful sounds coming from 
some distance in front of me. As is the case 
near the equator, dawn lasted but a few sec- 
onds, when the sun came out in all its glory 
and I was delighted to see water sparkling a 
short distance in front of me. 

The hippopotamus made his way toward 
the awful roars and grunts. I crept through 
the bushes almost to the water’s edge. Peep- 
ing through the high grass, a most wonder- 
ful sight met my eyes. Five big river 
horses lay on the bank of the lake. Birds 
were walking over their huge bodies, eating 
the bugs and worms that they found on the 
animals’ hides. One of these beasts had a 
little calf by her side; but when the hippopot- 
amus that I had been following opened his 
big red mouth and gave a bellow, she got up 
and jumped into the water. The little one 
got on her back, and she began swimming 
across the lake to where the big hippopotamus 
stood. About halfway between the banks an 
alligator came up out of the water and was 
about to grab the little hippopotamus and pull 
it ofif the mother’s back, but quick as a flash the 


HIPPOPOTAMUS WITH HER CALF. 127 

huge mother turned and bit olf the tail of the 
alligator with as much ease as a child would 
bite a banana in two, then disappeared under 
the water. 

The animal I had followed and all those 
on the bank plunged into the lake and went 
after the alligator. In a few minutes the 
mother came to the top of the water with her 
little one on the back of her neck. She 
swam to the shore, and I could not keep from 
laughing when I saw this ^great, clumsy ani- 
mal playing with her calf as gayly as if it had 
been a kitten. The birds that had come to eat 
the bugs off her hide and to warn her of dan- 
ger, just as they do the rhinoceros, did not 
like the way she kept frisking about and would 
not stay on her back long at a time. 

Far out over the lake I could see little vapor- 
like fountains shoot up about three feet into 
the air. Although I could not see the bodies 
of the hippopotamuses, I knew that they were 
making these little fountains when they came 
up to get air, for, like whales, these animals 
cannot live under the water long at a time. 
They are good swimmers and divers, and can 
sink and rise in the water as best pleases them. 
They have an advantage over the whale in 


128 


WILLIE WYLD, 


that they can live on land any length of time 
without starving, for they can procure there 
the food they like as well as they can in the 
water, or even better. 

I had often been told that the hippopota- 
muses took good care of their young and were 
dangerous beasts when their calves were 
about, therefore I did not care to take any 
chances with this mother. And as she did not 
seem to be in any hurry about getting back 
into the water, I thought the best thing for 
me to do was to take to the woods and go 
around her. I had no sooner taken a step 
when the birds on the animal’s back flew into 
the air, making a great chatter. The hippopot- 
amus plunged into the lake, took her calf on 
her back, and dived into the water. She did 
not stay under long, for she had to come to 
the surface for her little one to breathe. She 
continued to dive and come up, but each time 
she was farther from me. 

I now pushed my way through the grass 
and weeds, but before I reached the water I 
saw a rhinoceros coming toward the lake. 
Several arrows were sticking in his side, and 
some parts of his body were red with blood. 
He plunged into the water, swam around for 


OUR MARCH TO THE NORTH. 


129 


a while, drinking all the time, then made a 
dive to the bottom of the lake, coming up with 
a mouthful of grass. I felt that this rhinoc- 
eros was the one that Juma and the other ne- 
groes had been chasing, but I did not remain 
to see what the animal did, for I was very 
hungry and hurried on to camp, to find that 
General Kermit had just returned from a 
search for me. I told him about the rhinoc- 
eros, and he started ofif to kill the animal. But 
he was too late, for Juma and his men had 
tracked the beast to the lake and had killed 
him. 

The next morning we took up our march 
to the north, the negroes in great glee return- 
ing to their homes loaded with meat that they 
so dearly love. 

We had learned enough from these people 
to know that the place we wanted to find was 
many days’ travel from the lake. Many were 
our fights and hardships before we came in 
sight of the village, and we found it surround- 
ed by an army of negro warriors. It was 
taking big chances to undertake to drive all 
this army away, but we depended on scaring 
them with our guns. Our men believed that 
we could whip all the negroes in Africa, and 
9 


130 


WILLIE WYLD, 


owing to this belief they were willing to obey 
our orders. 

Like Indian fighters we crawled through the 
grass and bushes close up to the enemy, then, 
hiding behind trees, we opened fire on them 
before they had seen us. Our plans worked 
out better than we could have expected. The 
warriors scattered in every direction ; and 
when the people in the village saw them on 
the run, they came out with spears and war 
clubs and chased them through the woods. 

We marched to the village gate, and great 
crowds of half-starved negroes — men, women, 
and children — came out to meet us. Behind 
them came the king and his officers. We then 
heard the order given: ‘'Make way for the 
king and the white man!” The police forced 
an open way through the crowd, and in a mo- 
ment a white man ran to us, exclaiming: 
“Thank God! you have come in time to save 
us from our terrible enemies.” 

O ! but we were glad to see a white face once 
more ; and when we learned that this was really 
Dr. Wesley, we were overjoyed. He was not 
a prisoner, as we had feared, nor was he the 
white man that Queeny had once seen. 


OVERJOYED, 


131 

We learned from Dr. Wesley that from 
time to time he had given Arab slave traders 
letters to bp taken to Zanzibar and mailed 
home; but they must have destroyed the let- 
ters, as all slave traders are opposed to mis- 
sionaries being sent to teach and preach to 
the African negro. 

We found that the people of the village had 
so long been prisoners that they were without 
food and would have starved to death if we 
had not driven the warriors away. 

We at once made our plans to return to Zan- 
zibar and from there take a ship back to our 
faraway home. 


JAN 6 1913 


t t 

t The Morrison System of Natural History Stories % 

J* By William James Morrison 

I Willie Wyld: His Wonderful Voyage to the 
t Island of Zanzibar 

Introduction by Miss Mary Hannah John- 
❖ son, of Carnegie Library. 128 pages. Finely 
^ illustrated and handsomely bound in cloth with ^ 

^ illuminated cover. Price, postpaid, 50 cents. J 

I Willie Wyld : Lost in the Jungles of Africa | 

Introduction by Richard T. Wyche, Presi- i* 
dent National Story-Tellers League. Uniform 
with the above. Price, postpaid, 50 cents. 

IN f*re:f»aration 

Uniform with the above Willie Wyld series 
and by the same author. 

Charlie Circus: Among the Indians of Brazil 

Charlie Circus: In the Wilds of Brazil 

Charlie Circus: Hunting and Trapping in 
Brazil 

Price, postpaid, per volume, 50 cents. 


SMITH & LAMAR, Publishers 

X Nashville, Tenn. 

X Dallas, Tex. - - Richmond, Va. ^ 

V 4* 

❖ 

(132) 





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